By Leah Conway –
In an effort to reduce waste, Oxfam is campaigning this month for ‘Second Hand September’.
Second Hand September is the dedication to buy only second hand clothes for at least 30 days, and it is hoped that it might convince people to continue shopping for pre-loved items beyond this month.
Whether it be online or in your local charity shops, there’s plenty of second-hand choices out there.
Oxfam has both local shops and an online store you can shop in, but there are plenty of second-hand and thrift stores and you can often be spoilt for choice.
Why buy second hand?
Around 350,00 tonnes of used but still wearable clothes go into the UK’s landfills every year, which equates to more than 30% of the UK’s unwanted clothing.
By buying and donating second hand you can effortlessly give clothes a longer life, doing your part to reduce the damage of fast fashion and reduce waste footprints and clothing consumption.
By shopping through charity stores, you are also supporting good causes that help people, by simply changing your shopping choices.
Who knows, maybe you could find your new favourite piece of clothing or someone will find something they’ve been looking for about in one of your donations?
Upcycling
Textiles are and can be one of the easiest things to be recycled, reused and upcycled.
There are even small local businesses that centre around creating upcycled original pieces as well as buying clothes as if they were in charity shops.
Many charity shops can even get valuable money from donated rags, which can be bagged up and upon being weighed, the charities get paid.