8 ms·

> There is simply no easy, universal guidance for the most Earth-friendly or hassle-free or socially good way for you to dispose of your old clothes But there

by trgn 4y ago

> There is simply no easy, universal guidance for the most Earth-friendly or hassle-free or socially good way for you to dispose of your old clothes But there is. In fact, the answer is right in the setup of the article. > For much of American history [...] most of the population considered the endless accumulation of material goods unseemly, Basically, don't buy so many clothes to begin with. And then you don't have to dispose them. This happens all the time. Looking for a solution to a problem, when the problem shouldn't really even arise in the first place. It's a great slogan, `reduce, reuse, recycle`, but we tend to forget the first two are the most important ones.

DigitallyFidget 4y ago
Eventually you will have to dispose of old clothes as they start to get holes, tear, break seams, and just generally fall apart. I still have shirts from over 15 years ago. I buy new clothes maybe once or twice a year at most. When it becomes too swiss-cheesed to wear in public anymore, I just use it as a rag/drying towel. I just recently bought all new socks and retired all the old ones to rags. When the rags are so oil stained, torn up, and useless, then I'll finally retire them to the trash. I keep old ruined pants for patch material, too, since my pants are pretty much all the same few colours. Sewing is easy, you don't have to be good at it, if you can manage to get the thread through the needle eye and tie a secure knot, you've already done the hardest part of sewing. The rest is just pushing the needle back and forth through the material. Doesn't matter how sloppy the stitching looks, if it holds, it's good. Nobody is going to lean over, inspect it, and say, "You, sir, sew like an idiot." It really requires zero skill, just buy a cheap sewing kit that comes with thread and needles, and give it a go. Nylon thread is the best, IMO, because you can use a lighter to melt the thread into the fabric and then not have to worry about having a secure start and end knot that won't come loose.
pwinnski 4y ago
100% agree on reducing! Still, are you suggesting that clothes should be kept forever? Because whether you're talking about someone who discards entire wardrobes at the end of every season, or someone who rotates the same very-few items until they no longer fit, at some point people still need to do something with old clothes.
- ezfe 4y ago
  Yeah, and if you're disposing of few clothes, then throwing them away isn't unreasonable.
  - denimnerd42 4y ago
    throwing away worn out clothes that don’t make good rags is my go to.
- trgn 4y ago
  > Still, are you suggesting that clothes should be kept forever? Fair point! > Because whether you're talking about someone who discards entire wardrobes at the end of every season I would assume these people buy high-end garments, and you'll find more boutique second hand stores that will take it. I suspect, if somebody is that devoted to fashion, it's more of a hobby or a passion, and I think we're all allowed a few vices, splurges, and wasteful pleasures. > or someone who rotates the same very-few items until they no longer fit I think the natural end point for heavily worn clothes would be as a rag?
  - trebbble 4y ago
    > I think the natural end point for heavily worn clothes would be as a rag? This used to be a super-common middle class (and under, I suppose) habit, at least in the US. But synthetics make shitty rags, so that rules out a high percentage of modern cheap clothes of the sort that don't tend to get repaired or sold used, and material costs are so low that more people can easily afford to just buy cotton rags that'll perform better than strips of denim or old cotton t-shirts. Plus I don't think people do things that call for nigh-disposable cloth rags as much anymore (in our house they were mostly used for cleaning up engine grease or motor oil, but folks worked on their own cars and lawnmowers and such a lot more back then, and they were all ICE, not electric)
  - mandevil 4y ago
    If you RtFA, you would see that she considers resellers, and points out that most clothes that are fashionable- especially for women, who are always judged more harshly in this sort of situation- don't hold up to wear and washing very well. One of the categories is specifically described as "ultra-cheap items that obviously wouldn’t survive machine washing but that would cost more to dry-clean than they did to buy." She also considers the larger point that "the resale economy, too, has boomed, and you can find new buyers for your old clothes on a slew of resale websites and apps, including eBay, Poshmark, Depop, and Facebook Marketplace." Reselling, however, well, falls into exactly the same consumerist trap that you started out proclaiming was the problem: "But the bigger issue, Le Zotte and Bédat both cautioned, is that resale apps and services aren’t really a bulwark against overconsumption, even though they feel that way (and even though they’re often marketed as such). Buying secondhand is definitely preferable to buying and discarding brand-new stuff, but if you’re constantly cycling through clothes and chasing trends, then you’re still just as much caught in the teeth of the fashion system as the rest of us." The lesson that I took from this article is that being a male computer engineer[1], and thus having social approval to look however the hell I want, is a great perk that I do not explicitly value enough. In fact, it is because I don't have to think about what I wear- I literally have a rotation of shirts and pants/shorts and just pick whatever is next in each category- that the perk is so large and I undervalue it so much. [1]: It helps that I fit into essentially every dominant caste category for my local region, I suspect, but my sample sizes are small enough here that I won't comment about that. My sample sizes on female computer engineers is large enough that I feel comfortable saying that they are held to higher standards of dress than I am.
CPLX 4y ago
This may come as a shock as I admit the extent of it surprised me as well, but the speed with which children change size soundly outstrips the lifetime of the average piece of clothing. And I’ve heard rumors that adults change size quite a bit as well. Sometimes they move from one place to another too.
- bigfudge 4y ago
  Right, but there tend to be other children who are smaller not far away. It always strikes me as weird how many parents seem to have something against passing on clothes between kids.
  - kenned3 4y ago
    I have three kids (two daughters an a son). The boy is the oldest and we would still "hand-me-down" until they became a bit older and didn't want to wear "boys clothes" anymore. With three kids, costs add up and so we would get the boy things the girls could wear as well (future planning). Say he needed new t-shirts and one had a large tractor on it, and the other was just a T-Shirt with nothing on it.. The problem as they age becomes "social norms". To this day, I continue to push both my daughters to try boys jeans. They constantly complain girls pants lack pockets, yet refuse to even try on boys jeans to see if they work? The other issue is some kids REFUSE hand-me-downs and too many parents take the easy road, and buy new clothes? Our youngest had hand-me-downs from both her older brother and older sister and simply didn't care that she was wearing "boys clothes". This really helped our budget.
- trgn 4y ago
  I know. But I find it actually quite easy to get rid of lightly worn children clothes, and donate them. Mostly informal networks, but a lot of more formal exchanges as well. e.g. also includes car seats, strollers, ... > And I’ve heard rumors that adults change size quite a bit as well. Tell me about it. But I was able to trade my nicer stuff (suits, shirts) no problem. Not the junk.
- stormbrew 4y ago
  I think this is a thing where "how did people used to dispose of clothes" is one of many tips of a much bigger "the rise of the atomic family reduced our interconnectedness and our ability to share resources" iceberg. People talk about using hand-me-downs but it's become a lot less common to have enough people in your life to get or give things to, outside more formal channels like thrift stores that will only accept certain kinds and qualities of goods (for good reasons). If I had a kid right now I wouldn't really have anyone in my life who could give me outgrown clothes, nor would I have anyone to give them to. My life just isn't built that way and I don't think that's uncommon.
ziddoap 4y ago
Unfortunately I'm not allowed to walk around naked, so I am forced to purchase clothes at some point. And at some later point, I have to dispose of them. Your comment doesn't seem to address that, and it's pretty fundamental to the question, I think.
- trgn 4y ago
  > And at some later point, I have to dispose of them. I somewhat disagree. You do have to get your clothes, but what is about the disposing of perfectly fine clothes that's necessary? It's only because we have too many of them. Wear the clothes until they're worn. Use the rags.
  - geraldyo 4y ago
    getting taller, getting fatter, skinnier, needing special clothing due to injury or pregnancy, etc...
    - jjulius 4y ago
      Clothes ripping by accident, food or drink spilling on them and staining them, and so on...
      - eptcyka 4y ago
        We should normalize stains on clothing. Visual cleanliness is overrated, as long as hygiene is sufficient.
        xboxnolifes 4y ago
        This will never happen.
        pharmakom 4y ago
        Buy dark earthy tones that don’t stain easily?
        4y ago
llbeansandrice 4y ago
I get your point but this is just the StackOverflow stereotype: "Hey I need help doing $thing, any advice or help?" A: "Why would you want to to $thing? Nobody does $thing. My advice is to not do $thing." _Accepted answer_ It's also this fallacy[1]. The topic is disposing of old clothes in a Earth-friendly, hassle-free, and socially good way. Putting up barriers to consumerism further upstream is an entirely different topic. [1]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/09567976221075302?journalCode=pssa https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679762210753...
pharmakom 4y ago
Totally agree with this. The challenge I have though is that I don’t know what I will end up wearing loads. If I buy multiples the I risk over buying and creating waste. If I buy one I risk it being discontinued. I try to buy quality so that the chance of resale (not landfill) is higher.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Buy early in the product cycle and decide before it’s clearanced out.
OJFord 4y ago
I only really buy clothes as needed when I've lost them to wear, but what frustrates me is when that wear is seemingly just washing. Cotton polo shirts seem to shrink like anything; I'm only washing at 30 degC. Something about the looser weave? Cotton shirts last far longer, and I lose them to collar/cuff wear, not shrinkage. (I do actually have some a few collars and shirts which take detachable collars, before someone points out that's the classic, perhaps bygone solution, but I'm not sure anyone can manage to do that every modern day without drawing attention to it. Nor whether I could be bothered anyway to be honest - not like I have 'a man' to help with it!) In fact I noticed the shirt I'm wearing today has a too-worn collar, so it's 'reuse' for it now - trouble is the rags pile grows faster than it's used.
- vidanay 4y ago
  Clothing shrinkage typically comes from the dryer, not the washer.
  - unlikelymordant 4y ago
    I find most of the wear e.g. collar wear also comes from the drier. Line drying seems to keep shirts in good condition much longer.
    - OJFord 4y ago
      I only tumble dry towels & bedding, no shirts or any clothes. So I believe you're correct, but my description was of machine washed and air dried clothes.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    I don't tumble dry clothes though, so not in my case.
- nickff 4y ago
  My understanding is that detachable collars are that way to allow for starching (which is quite uncommon these days), as well as certain styles which are otherwise difficult to create. Many people wear shirts that have differently-colored collars for stylistic reasons, men's dress shirts like this are called 'banker's shirts', so I don't think this is socially taboo.
Rackedup 4y ago
> Basically, don't buy so many clothes to begin with. And then you don't have to dispose them. I bought barely any clothes in years, but how are you going to follow fashion like that? /s
bearmode 4y ago
I buy very, very few items of clothing. I hold on to things as long as I can. And yet, every few years, I'll still have a few garbage bags filled with clothes that I need to dispose of. It may no longer fit me, in which case it might be suitable for donation, or it may have been damaged in some way that isn't feasible to repair. Reducing use is great, but the only way to never need to dispose of clothes is to never buy any clothes.
kwanbix 4y ago
In europe there are companies like MOMOX that allow you to sell to and buy from used clothes.

by trgn 4y ago

DigitallyFidget 4y ago

Eventually you will have to dispose of old clothes as they start to get holes, tear, break seams, and just generally fall apart. I still have shirts from over 15 years ago. I buy new clothes maybe once or twice a year at most. When it becomes too swiss-cheesed to wear in public anymore, I just use it as a rag/drying towel. I just recently bought all new socks and retired all the old ones to rags. When the rags are so oil stained, torn up, and useless, then I'll finally retire them to the trash. I keep old ruined pants for patch material, too, since my pants are pretty much all the same few colours. Sewing is easy, you don't have to be good at it, if you can manage to get the thread through the needle eye and tie a secure knot, you've already done the hardest part of sewing. The rest is just pushing the needle back and forth through the material. Doesn't matter how sloppy the stitching looks, if it holds, it's good. Nobody is going to lean over, inspect it, and say, "You, sir, sew like an idiot." It really requires zero skill, just buy a cheap sewing kit that comes with thread and needles, and give it a go. Nylon thread is the best, IMO, because you can use a lighter to melt the thread into the fabric and then not have to worry about having a secure start and end knot that won't come loose.

pwinnski 4y ago

100% agree on reducing! Still, are you suggesting that clothes should be kept forever? Because whether you're talking about someone who discards entire wardrobes at the end of every season, or someone who rotates the same very-few items until they no longer fit, at some point people still need to do something with old clothes.

ezfe 4y ago
Yeah, and if you're disposing of few clothes, then throwing them away isn't unreasonable.
- denimnerd42 4y ago
  throwing away worn out clothes that don’t make good rags is my go to.
trgn 4y ago
> Still, are you suggesting that clothes should be kept forever? Fair point! > Because whether you're talking about someone who discards entire wardrobes at the end of every season I would assume these people buy high-end garments, and you'll find more boutique second hand stores that will take it. I suspect, if somebody is that devoted to fashion, it's more of a hobby or a passion, and I think we're all allowed a few vices, splurges, and wasteful pleasures. > or someone who rotates the same very-few items until they no longer fit I think the natural end point for heavily worn clothes would be as a rag?
- trebbble 4y ago
  > I think the natural end point for heavily worn clothes would be as a rag? This used to be a super-common middle class (and under, I suppose) habit, at least in the US. But synthetics make shitty rags, so that rules out a high percentage of modern cheap clothes of the sort that don't tend to get repaired or sold used, and material costs are so low that more people can easily afford to just buy cotton rags that'll perform better than strips of denim or old cotton t-shirts. Plus I don't think people do things that call for nigh-disposable cloth rags as much anymore (in our house they were mostly used for cleaning up engine grease or motor oil, but folks worked on their own cars and lawnmowers and such a lot more back then, and they were all ICE, not electric)
- mandevil 4y ago
  If you RtFA, you would see that she considers resellers, and points out that most clothes that are fashionable- especially for women, who are always judged more harshly in this sort of situation- don't hold up to wear and washing very well. One of the categories is specifically described as "ultra-cheap items that obviously wouldn’t survive machine washing but that would cost more to dry-clean than they did to buy." She also considers the larger point that "the resale economy, too, has boomed, and you can find new buyers for your old clothes on a slew of resale websites and apps, including eBay, Poshmark, Depop, and Facebook Marketplace." Reselling, however, well, falls into exactly the same consumerist trap that you started out proclaiming was the problem: "But the bigger issue, Le Zotte and Bédat both cautioned, is that resale apps and services aren’t really a bulwark against overconsumption, even though they feel that way (and even though they’re often marketed as such). Buying secondhand is definitely preferable to buying and discarding brand-new stuff, but if you’re constantly cycling through clothes and chasing trends, then you’re still just as much caught in the teeth of the fashion system as the rest of us." The lesson that I took from this article is that being a male computer engineer[1], and thus having social approval to look however the hell I want, is a great perk that I do not explicitly value enough. In fact, it is because I don't have to think about what I wear- I literally have a rotation of shirts and pants/shorts and just pick whatever is next in each category- that the perk is so large and I undervalue it so much. [1]: It helps that I fit into essentially every dominant caste category for my local region, I suspect, but my sample sizes are small enough here that I won't comment about that. My sample sizes on female computer engineers is large enough that I feel comfortable saying that they are held to higher standards of dress than I am.

CPLX 4y ago

This may come as a shock as I admit the extent of it surprised me as well, but the speed with which children change size soundly outstrips the lifetime of the average piece of clothing. And I’ve heard rumors that adults change size quite a bit as well. Sometimes they move from one place to another too.

bigfudge 4y ago
Right, but there tend to be other children who are smaller not far away. It always strikes me as weird how many parents seem to have something against passing on clothes between kids.
- kenned3 4y ago
  I have three kids (two daughters an a son). The boy is the oldest and we would still "hand-me-down" until they became a bit older and didn't want to wear "boys clothes" anymore. With three kids, costs add up and so we would get the boy things the girls could wear as well (future planning). Say he needed new t-shirts and one had a large tractor on it, and the other was just a T-Shirt with nothing on it.. The problem as they age becomes "social norms". To this day, I continue to push both my daughters to try boys jeans. They constantly complain girls pants lack pockets, yet refuse to even try on boys jeans to see if they work? The other issue is some kids REFUSE hand-me-downs and too many parents take the easy road, and buy new clothes? Our youngest had hand-me-downs from both her older brother and older sister and simply didn't care that she was wearing "boys clothes". This really helped our budget.
trgn 4y ago
I know. But I find it actually quite easy to get rid of lightly worn children clothes, and donate them. Mostly informal networks, but a lot of more formal exchanges as well. e.g. also includes car seats, strollers, ... > And I’ve heard rumors that adults change size quite a bit as well. Tell me about it. But I was able to trade my nicer stuff (suits, shirts) no problem. Not the junk.
stormbrew 4y ago
I think this is a thing where "how did people used to dispose of clothes" is one of many tips of a much bigger "the rise of the atomic family reduced our interconnectedness and our ability to share resources" iceberg. People talk about using hand-me-downs but it's become a lot less common to have enough people in your life to get or give things to, outside more formal channels like thrift stores that will only accept certain kinds and qualities of goods (for good reasons). If I had a kid right now I wouldn't really have anyone in my life who could give me outgrown clothes, nor would I have anyone to give them to. My life just isn't built that way and I don't think that's uncommon.

ziddoap 4y ago

Unfortunately I'm not allowed to walk around naked, so I am forced to purchase clothes at some point. And at some later point, I have to dispose of them. Your comment doesn't seem to address that, and it's pretty fundamental to the question, I think.

trgn 4y ago
> And at some later point, I have to dispose of them. I somewhat disagree. You do have to get your clothes, but what is about the disposing of perfectly fine clothes that's necessary? It's only because we have too many of them. Wear the clothes until they're worn. Use the rags.
- geraldyo 4y ago
  getting taller, getting fatter, skinnier, needing special clothing due to injury or pregnancy, etc...
  - jjulius 4y ago
    Clothes ripping by accident, food or drink spilling on them and staining them, and so on...
    - eptcyka 4y ago
      We should normalize stains on clothing. Visual cleanliness is overrated, as long as hygiene is sufficient.
      - xboxnolifes 4y ago
        This will never happen.
      - pharmakom 4y ago
        Buy dark earthy tones that don’t stain easily?
      - 4y ago

llbeansandrice 4y ago

I get your point but this is just the StackOverflow stereotype: "Hey I need help doing $thing, any advice or help?" A: "Why would you want to to $thing? Nobody does $thing. My advice is to not do $thing." _Accepted answer_ It's also this fallacy[1]. The topic is disposing of old clothes in a Earth-friendly, hassle-free, and socially good way. Putting up barriers to consumerism further upstream is an entirely different topic. [1]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/09567976221075302?journalCode=pssa https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679762210753...

pharmakom 4y ago

Totally agree with this. The challenge I have though is that I don’t know what I will end up wearing loads. If I buy multiples the I risk over buying and creating waste. If I buy one I risk it being discontinued. I try to buy quality so that the chance of resale (not landfill) is higher.

bombcar 4y ago
Buy early in the product cycle and decide before it’s clearanced out.

OJFord 4y ago

I only really buy clothes as needed when I've lost them to wear, but what frustrates me is when that wear is seemingly just washing. Cotton polo shirts seem to shrink like anything; I'm only washing at 30 degC. Something about the looser weave? Cotton shirts last far longer, and I lose them to collar/cuff wear, not shrinkage. (I do actually have some a few collars and shirts which take detachable collars, before someone points out that's the classic, perhaps bygone solution, but I'm not sure anyone can manage to do that every modern day without drawing attention to it. Nor whether I could be bothered anyway to be honest - not like I have 'a man' to help with it!) In fact I noticed the shirt I'm wearing today has a too-worn collar, so it's 'reuse' for it now - trouble is the rags pile grows faster than it's used.

vidanay 4y ago
Clothing shrinkage typically comes from the dryer, not the washer.
- unlikelymordant 4y ago
  I find most of the wear e.g. collar wear also comes from the drier. Line drying seems to keep shirts in good condition much longer.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    I only tumble dry towels & bedding, no shirts or any clothes. So I believe you're correct, but my description was of machine washed and air dried clothes.
- OJFord 4y ago
  I don't tumble dry clothes though, so not in my case.
nickff 4y ago
My understanding is that detachable collars are that way to allow for starching (which is quite uncommon these days), as well as certain styles which are otherwise difficult to create. Many people wear shirts that have differently-colored collars for stylistic reasons, men's dress shirts like this are called 'banker's shirts', so I don't think this is socially taboo.

Rackedup 4y ago

> Basically, don't buy so many clothes to begin with. And then you don't have to dispose them. I bought barely any clothes in years, but how are you going to follow fashion like that? /s

bearmode 4y ago

I buy very, very few items of clothing. I hold on to things as long as I can. And yet, every few years, I'll still have a few garbage bags filled with clothes that I need to dispose of. It may no longer fit me, in which case it might be suitable for donation, or it may have been damaged in some way that isn't feasible to repair. Reducing use is great, but the only way to never need to dispose of clothes is to never buy any clothes.

kwanbix 4y ago

In europe there are companies like MOMOX that allow you to sell to and buy from used clothes.