You wouldn’t believe the waste at my old job.
I must have covered this at some point, but in case I haven’t: my old job (nursing home) created so much waste of every kind. Plastics and clothing were the 2 biggest contributors. The plastic was an every day occurrence due to our linen system, but clothing was -and is- a preventative waste.
In Western countries, we collect a LOT more then we realistically need. With such ease of access to StuffTM, we Westerners don’t recognize the true luxury we have in being able to get things when we want it in a relatively short amount of time or on demand. Clothing/fashion/accessories are bought, “consumed”, and discarded at alarming speeds. Many people don’t try to upcycle their goods into something new once they tire of it. Thrift and second hand stores are so stuffed to the brim with Stuff that they don’t have space for the newer fastest fashions. Where do you think your donated shirt goes when you’ve tired of it? It ends up in the trash after a week on the thrift store’s shelves… if it’s lucky to see the shelves.
I can only speak for the facility I’ve worked in, but maybe someone out there can pitch in too: I’ve witnessed so much good clothing go to waste that it makes me feel gross to be the one doing it. Those really well made CAT work boots that I wear near constantly now that were like new when I brought them home? Those would have been in a trash site somewhere because someone never claimed them. The strings I used to replace the criminally short original laces came from old hoodies.
I went back to my old work place later in the evening the day before last to keep my former co worker company for an hour or two. While she was telling me about all of the craziness she’s being put through, curiosity lead me through the lost and found to see what had changed. I found the same stuff that’s been there for almost a year, maybe longer. The newer abandoned stuff looks like it was new, or lightly worn. My coworker said she kept asking others what belonged to who but no one ever knew for some reason… either the stuff belonged to a super short term residents or it was unmarked and unwanted. Most of it is shirts, some are pants.
“We need to get rid of it.” She says. I agree, we need to get rid of the old stuff.
Out with the old, in with the new… sounds familiar.
I’ve thought about taking a shirt or pants that weren’t my size and using it as scrap fabric, but there is only so much space I can dedicate to that cause. For me, that space is limited to a single shelf. I’d love to take it all and use as much of the material as possible to make sure there was zero waste, but I know the truth: that clothing rack will be emptied to the trash and it will fill back up with unclaimed fast fashion. I’ve taken ripped, faded, and dingy items bound for the trash and made really good items out of it. I know I cannot and should not save everything because it “could be useful for the future”, that’s one way to spiral into hoarding disorders, but to me it feels wrong when I can’t help it.
I hope things like that don’t haunt y’all. Sometimes we have to let go of the pants or shirts that happen to fit us before we ever latch onto them. I’ve run across many shirts and a few pants that I’ve given to my partner sense he doesn’t have much and he wears them. No one claimed them for over 3 months and I wasn’t going to let him have nothing but 2 pairs of shorts, 2 shirts and a single pair of jeans that were thin and ripping at the booty cheeks. Moments like that make me proud that I think the way that I do, and that I’ve saved a hell of a lot of money by doing what I’ve done.
I benefited from this lifestyle change too! I’ve gotten to claim a white thermal shirt, a grey light button up jacket, and brand new trapper hat (ushanka) during the visit. It’s such a shame that people/their families won’t claim perfectly decent clothing, even after half a year.
