Blog Action Day: Reduce, Reuse, Relove

One of my favorite clothing companies, Preloved, has an incredibly simple eco-sensitive idea – make new clothes from old clothes. According to charityguide.org, the average American disposes of 67.9 pounds of clothing and rags each year. “Collectively, Americans discard two quadrillion pounds (that's a two with fifteen zeroes!!) of used clothing and textiles into the landfills each year . . . although almost 95% of used clothing is reusable or recyclable.” In addition, manufacturing clothing from scratch uses more resources and creates much more environmental waste.

Preloved, a Canadian company, offers affordable, one-of-a-kind designer pieces made from gently used clothing and other items (such a bed-sheets). According to Treehugger.com, Preloved’s Spring 2006 collection included 7,000 lbs. of recycled bed sheets, 30,000 sweaters, thousands of t-shirts and hundreds of pounds of jeans.

All I can say is WOW!!

Find Preloved in the Washington DC area at Nana boutique, 1534 U Street, NW. Last time I was there, they had lovely cashmere dresses that were to die-for soft and each one was totally unique. No more worrying about someone else wearing your outfit at a party.

Also:

For a really informative article (with pictures!) on the environmental impacts of the apparel industry, see “Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry” in the online version of the journal, Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP).