Don’t use it? Donate It!

Malka Doshi

May 01, 2020

This year, we created the alliance calendar, with every month focusing on an ‘Action of the Month’ that encourages our members to partake in a small change that can make their lives greener. For the month of January, we asked our members to make their own green resolutions, for march we decided to eat less meat and so on. The resolution for May is to donate old clothes.

How does donating old clothes benefit the environment, one might ask. And to be fair, there isn’t an obvious correlation between old clothes and environmental issues. So how does donating old clothing help the planet?

If you follow us on any of our social media channels, you may have come across many tweets/Instagrams/Facebook posts bemoaning the environmental issues caused by the textile and fashion industry. To state facts one more time, that fashion industry is responsible for 10% of the world’s carbon emissions, the second-largest consumer of water resources and a contributor to marine pollution.

These are problems associated with production and transportation, so how will donating old clothes help? If you are serious about living a sustainable lifestyle, then donating old clothes is an easy choice to make in your life. Every piece of clothing that you donate ultimately leads to it not ending up in a landfill. That sounds good, right?

Multiple brands have also partnered with sustainability and recycling centres to recycle old clothes. These brands will gift you with a coupon to their store for every bag of clothing that you recycle. Donating old items to a thrift store can also alleviate water pollution. Primarily, when you donate clothes and they’re reused by someone else, there’s no need for such high production of new items since there would be no one to buy them.

It also helps us reduce our personal carbon footprint. Reducing your consumption and donating older items is an extremely simple step all of us can take to mitigate climate change. And while there isn’t a one-stop solution to fight climate change, if we all contribute, we can surely push the needle towards a more sustainable future!

Donating old clothes has another benefit, you learn to live with less. Minimalism, while not a solution for climate change as a whole, is most likely the step we need to take to change our perspective on the climate crisis. Getting rid of the excess can serve as the first step for you towards minimalism as a lifestyle choice, which can be of great benefit to the planet.

So as far as your used clothing goes, if you’re not using it, put it back into circulation. Your clothing donation will help you do something good for the environment, for others, and in the end, for yourself.