Sustainability - Thrift Stores

Thrift stores are a study in re-use. Items are used (sometimes gently). I donate any items I have that have some usable life rather than recycling or trashing…and they generally end up in thrift stores.

The thrift store offerings are unpredictable but often great bargains. I have several I like that are located in upper middle class areas - people that buy more than they need and often end up donating items that are well worth a second round. One has to shop with an open mind rather than a particular item in mind.

At first, I thought it would be impossible to find specific clothing. Now when I look at my closest I realize that almost all my slacks and jeans are from the thrift store. I look for black pants of any kind every time I go to a thrift store. Sometime I find several pairs in my size - sometimes none at all. Right now I am replacing pants that have gotten too big now that I’ve lost weight!

I also have collected skirts. With the low cost - I pull out anything I like and check size and washability. I have several that I would never have bought if they had been priced higher than $5!

Blouses wear out faster than pants and skirts…so when I find blouses that will supplement what I have, I purchase them even if I don’t need them right away. Only about half my blouses/sweaters/tops are from the thrift store…still a substantial contribution to my closet.

Another thrift store find: Several years ago, I discovered that I like ‘meal in a bowl’ (salads, soups, stir fry) and it needs to be a larger bowl than a cereal bowl…more like a small serving bowl. Small serving bowls are easy to find at thrift stores….I just wish I had purchased the second bowl they had like the one I bought! Never count on being able to find it again later!

Anything I am able to buy from a thrift store rather than new is an act toward sustainability….and good for my budget too.

Sustainability - Reusable Bags vs Single Use Plastic Bags

Single use plastic shopping bags are not part of a sustainable future. They:

• Are made from a non-renewable resource
• Can only be recycled if they are clean
• Do no biodegrade very rapidly
• Are hazards to wildlife - both on land and in water

Here is how I’m avoiding the single use plastic shopping bags completely.

Avoiding plastic shopping bags from grocery shopping has been a story of ongoing improvement for me. The first step was to remember the ‘bag-of-bags’ for the major grocery shopping trips. I’ve been doing that for a few years now.

Then I started carrying a thin fabric bag folded in a pocket of my purse and that enabled another reduction in the rate of plastic bag accumulation in my home over the past year or so. My husband started carrying a bag in his car but kept forgetting to take it into the store until we got one that was a brighter color that folded flat to fit in the pocket of the driver’s side door of his car. Now he uses his reusable bag the majority of the time.

Recently I started the next reduction in plastic bags: using reusable mesh bags for veggies (like the potatoes, sweet potatoes, and parsnips in the picture). In the past, all the reusable type bags I tried in the produce section were a failure because the labels from the scales would not stick to the material. Now I am used some large safety pins that I’ve had for over 20 years to hold the labels in place.

I know I’m making progress because it takes me a very long time to collect one small bag of plastic bags for recycling. Most of them are not shopping bags (they are bags from flyers/papers delivered to the driveway, bread wrappers, or plastic bags over boxes delivered to the doorstep on a rainy day).

Ultimately - my goal is to have no single use plastic shopping bags to take back to the grocery store for recycling…and I’m getting very close to that goal!