Category Archives: clothes

“Green” Fashionistas Love Consignment Stores

Posted on October 4, 2010 by | 6 Comments

Enviro Girl was reminded last Friday why she adores shopping at consignment shops.  First, it’s the most environmentally friendly way to shop.  When you buy used items, you reduce your environmental impact in a major way.  Used clothes don’t require new materials, energy or resources to manufacture.  They also don’t require new packaging or additional shipping.  (Consider for a moment the impact of cotton grown in America, shipped to China for processing, then exported to Vietnam where workers will cut and sew the cloth, then the clothing gets shipped back across the ocean to America to a warehouse where it will then get transported to various stores to be sold to customers.)   Buying new clothes uses a lot of resources and energy.  If you can reuse clothes by buying them used, it’s much better for the planet.

Second, Enviro Girl enjoys shopping at consignment stores because of the quality.  Thrift stores have pretty low standards:  no holes, tears or stains.  Consignment stores have higher standards–they only take clothing currently in fashion and generally take higher-end brands and quality.  The owners of consignment stores hand select the best offerings from their customers and set it out on the store floor in an appealing manner.  Thrift shops tend to be slapped together, customers have to really dig around to find good things smushed in among the rest.  Enviro Girl is an incredibly lazy shopper, so when the store assumes the burden of the work for her, she’s always grateful.

Shopping consignment costs a little more than shopping at a thrift store, but Enviro Girl still thinks it’s a phenomenal deal.  She’s bought sweaters, blouses and skirts for $15-$20 that retail at places like Banana Republic and Ann Taylor for $50-$80.  Sure, she’d pay less for those things at a thrift store, but that’s provided she could even find them at a thrift store!

Consignment shops are owned by people passionate about fashion.  Enviro Girl needs all the help she can get on that front, and really appreciates the relationship she has with her local consignment store owner.  She’s set in a dressing room, clothes in her size are passed through to her, and advice on how to wear clothes is freely handed out.  The store owner knows what’s hot and what’s not, takes into consideration the customers’ lifestyle and age, and recommends clothing that the customers will get the most mileage out of.

Alternately, if you are a fashionista, consignment stores offer you an opportunity to unload things you’ve grown tired of and make some money back.  Enviro Girl knows many women who take their clothes to consignment stores and earn hundreds of dollars that they can use for new clothes.  Consignment stores are a brilliant combination of swapping and recycling.

Finally, Enviro Girl likes consignment stores because of the variety.  It’s like an entire mall of stores under one single roof.  On her last visit to her favorite consignment store, she bought a sweater by L.L. Bean, a skirt from Banana Republic, a blouse from The Limited, a necklace from Chicos and a sweater by Ann Taylor–for under $100.  Instead of having to pay full price at a whole bunch of different stores, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices (another part of shopping that Enviro Girl hates), she was able to go to one locally owned and operated shop and get all of these things.

If you haven’t shopped consignment yet, give it a try.  If you do shop consignment, tell us about it!

Enviro Girl loves the selection and service at Chic to Chic.

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Posted in clothes, living green on a budget

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Fall wardrobe tips for Eco Warriors

Posted on September 30, 2010 by | 1 Comment

With fall here, Recycla is delighted to put away summer clothes and start wearing sweaters, scarves, and other cute clothes.  For weeks, while natives of her home state of Virginia have suffered through endless 90+ degree days, she has been flipping through catalogs and gazing with longing at page after page of cool weather clothes.  Luckily, the weather is now more seasonal, with highs in the low 70s and lows in the 40s, with cooler weather predicted soon.

So yes, Recycla is ready to do a little fall shopping, but first she needs to be a good Eco Warrior and do some advance planning.  In fact, she’s guessing that most people reading this need to do a little recon of their closets before going shopping.  So here are Recycla’s tips for getting your fall wardrobe into shape:

First of all, go through your closet and your dresser.  Pull everything out.  Is there stuff you never wear?  Then put it in a bag to donate to charity so that someone else can get some use out of it.  Don’t donate stained clothes that can never be cleaned.  Instead, turn those items into rags.

Next, repair anything that needs a new button, fixed hem, etc. and clean anything that needs cleaning.  Hopefully, when you put your woolen clothes away last spring, they were clean.  If not, make a pile for the dry cleaners — click here to find a list of eco dry cleaners in your area.  (If you have a problem with moths, click here for non-toxic ways to deal with them.)

Are you using a motley collection of plastic and wire hangers?  Consider switching to eco hangers.  Nicer hangers do a better job of holding your clothes up and don’t leave funny bumps and indentations.

Recycla is a big fan of an organized closet; so much so that her friends and family have called on her on occasion to come deal with their closets.  An organized closet makes it easy for you to quickly find what you’re looking for when you’re getting dressed in the morning.  Recycla’s general rule of thumb is to hang things in groups — shirts with shirts, pants with pants, etc.  She goes further and hangs things in ascending order by size — short sleeve shirts, then 3/4 sleeve shirts, then long sleeve shirts, then skirts, then dresses,  then pants.  After that, she groups colors together.  Since most of her wardrobe is black, this is pretty easy, but she does have a few items in brights.  (Those who know Recycla in real life, try not to faint from shock.)

Down on the floor of your closet, pull out all of your shoes and then sweep or vacuum the floor.  How you organize your shoes is up to you, but at the very least, put them in sort sort of neat order with pairs matched up and types of shoes together.  If your shoes need polishing, do it.  If some of the heels need replacing, take them to the shoe repair place.  Yes, shoes can be repaired!  Doing so saves you money in the long run and saves Planet Earth’s resources.

By repairing and cleaning and generally taking care of your clothes, they’ll last longer and won’t need to be replaced as quickly.  And by keeping things organized, you don’t lose track of what you have.

Now that you have organized your closet and dresser, take stock of what you have and figure out what you need.  Do you have the basics to cover what you need to wear day in and day out?  If not, make a list and go shopping.

When you go shopping, try to buy quality items that will last a long time.  (Difficult to do in this era of nearly disposable clothes.)  Some companies, such as Patagonia, are known for their excellent corporate eco ethic, so if it works for your budget, support these companies.

Also keep in mind that most people have far more in their closets than they ever wear.  How many sweaters do you really need?  Think about ways you can simplify your wardrobe.  Consider experimenting to see what you actually wear and what just hangs there month after month.  In the past couple of months, Recycla has seen several articles about people who are going on a clothing diet for  a specified period of time and not buying anything new.  She’s also heard of people who are trying to live with minimal wardrobes — such as six core articles of clothing.

Recycla isn’t staying that you should live an austere existence with only a few outfits, but wants you to examine your life and your wardrobe and see if there’s room for change.  She personally tends to wear mostly black — primarily because it’s easy and she doesn’t have to think when she’s dressing in the pre-dawn hours — and adds color with accessories.  That way, she can live with fewer items of clothing.  But, that’s just Recycla’s way of doing things; her children think that she always looks funeral-ready and could stand to wear more color.

Tell the Eco Women:  What’s your personal style?  Are you preppy, sporty, trendy, or something else?  What’s your favorite fall fashion this year?

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Posted in clothes

Eco Back-to-School: Swap, Don’t Shop

Posted on August 11, 2010 by | 5 Comments

The cost of school supplies like pencils and notebooks can run up to $100 if you have a few kids heading back to school this fall.  Tack on book fees, activity fees, gym shoes and lunches and things start to get expensive.  According to the National Retail Federation, the average family will spend around $606 on school supplies and related expenses.  Enviro Girl has three kids going to school full-time this fall and even with recycling many of last year’s supplies and leftovers  she shelled out $150 on school supplies.  But she won’t spend $606 getting her sons back in the classroom and here’s why:

Instead of back-to-school shopping, she’s back-to-school swapping.

Her oldest son will attend parochial school this fall.  The students are required to wear uniforms, so he’ll need blue or white collared shirts and navy or tan khakis.   The school secretary advised her not to go shopping until after “School Swap Day.”

Two weeks before school, all the parents donate their children’s outgrown uniforms.  Parents in need of new sizes will find everything necessary for the school year laid out on cafeteria tables in the school commons.  In the spirit of Christian love and sharing, there is no charge.  The participants are simply expected to take what they need and leave behind what they don’t.  They’ve done this for years, saving families thousands of dollars.  The school secretary explained to Enviro Girl that each family gets a brown shopping sack per student and is encouraged to load it up with school clothes.  Anything left behind at the end of the day goes into a storage closet until next year’s swap.  Enviro Girl imagines this works quite well because in the world of school uniforms, no fashion trends come into play and a blue polo shirt from five years ago or last month looks pretty much the same.

Enviro Girl has  friends who do a back-to-school swap in their neighborhood.  It’s the same concept, only instead of tables full of white and blue polo shirts and navy and tan khakis, there are tables full of snow pants and coats, mittens, sports equipment, blue jeans and shirts — all organized by size and gender.  They don’t keep track of what you give and get in this neighborhood, but generally everyone donates and receives the same amount of clothing — hand-me-downs and hand-me-ups.

In tough economic times, clothing swaps are becoming the rage.  Heck, Clothing Swap even has its very own web site with tips on how to organize a successful swap event  for women’s clothing.   Enviro Girl’s town coordinates swaps of team t-shirts and uniforms and field trip t-shirts for the elementary school.  Not only does this save people money, it reduces the demand for new things, thus reducing our consumption of more resources like energy and water and cotton.  Nothing is greener than reusing, making clothes swapping a much more environmentally friendly practice than clothes shopping.

Enviro Girl has no plans to swap for her two younger sons this fall since they’ll inherit their big brother’s hand-me-downs in turn.  She will buy them new gym shoes, but that’s a post for another day.  Meanwhile, if you aren’t  swapping yet, Enviro Girl encourages you to get started and get greener!

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Posted in 3 Rs, clothes, eco kids, living green on a budget

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You bought it, wore it, wore it out … Now what? The “Green” Way to get rid of old clothes.

Posted on January 11, 2010 by | 3 Comments

Last week Enviro Girl went through her son’s closet to pull out all the clothes with holes in them.  If you’ve ever met a 7-year-old boy, you probably have a good idea of how HARD a boy can be on knees (and elbows, wrists, cuffs, really anything made of fabric).  Then she had her husband go through HIS closet.  Enviro Girl regularly goes through her own, donating to a local charity (St. Vincent DePaul Thrift Shop) what she doesn’t wear, turning into rags what is too nasty to pass along to another human being for further use.  Her efforts resulted in over TWO huge garbage bags FULL of clothes.

What does one do with old clothes?  What’s the “greenest” way to dispose of old/unused clothing?

Not in a landfill, that’s for sure!  So let’s explore the options:

1.  Pass old clothes along to someone in need.  Enviro Girl passes all her sons’ hand-me-downs to the son of friends.  This little guy has two older sisters, so he doesn’t get ANY hand-me-downs.  The family is thrilled to receive a bag of clothes and shoes every few months as Mr. G outgrows things in his closet.

2.  Sell your old clothes — but this only works if you are a fashionista.  Many consignment shops will take gently used, still stylish clothes off your hands for cash.  Another way to sell your old clothes is through a rummage/yard/garage sale — but this works much better for kids’ clothes than for adult clothes.

3.  Donate your old clothes to charity.  But again, do NOT give to charity anything ratty, torn, ripped, stained or missing buttons/zippers.  A charity should not be a dumping zone.  Kindly sort through your old clothes and separate out the things that cannot be worn again.  Enviro Girl did this, even sorting through a huge pile of her husband’s old dress socks, checking for worn out soles.  Any sign of thin fabric and it got pulled.  Enviro Girl prefers donating to charity — there are many local ones in her area, including Goodwill — she’s too lazy to hold a rummage sale to get rid of things!

4.  Use your old clothes for rags — old t-shirts, socks, towels and blankets make excellent rags for cleaning any kind of mess.  Enviro Girl quit buying paper towels about a year ago and opts for a drawer of cut-up towels to sop up spills and splatters.

5.  Old clothes make great scarecrows.  Enviro Girl and her sons have an old shirt and pants ready for this year’s garden scarecrow.

6.  Clothes made of natural fibers are compostable.  Sometimes Enviro Girl has too many clothes in her rag bin — she’ll toss old rags and old socks into the compost pile.  Mother Nature will break those items down and amend the soil with them.

7.  Crafters love old clothes — there is a group of women at a local church who make throw rugs out of old blue jeans, for example.  Enviro Girl isn’t this clever, but she knows folks who are.

8.  Enviro Girl will put a small bag of her sons’ ripped and torn clothes and her husband’s worn out dress socks into a big red U’SAgain bin.  She realizes that U’SAgain is NOT a charity, and cautions others to not give this organization new clothes because they are a for-profit organization and not invested in your local community.  However, they do recycle textiles, including old shoes, as a for-profit endeavor.  They keep clothes and shoes out of landfills by selling bundles of clothes to other countries and turning the remaining clothes into rags.

9.  Finally, the best solution to keeping clothes out of landfills is to not buy too many.  Buy only what you’ll wear and resist the temptation to buy more than that.  This way you’ll produce the most minimal waste and leave the least impact on our planet.  Enviro Girl did not replace all the clothes pulled from her family’s closets this weekend, in fact, only a few items need replacing.  The rest were, really, excess, a sad commentary on how wasteful Enviro Girl and her family are — even as Eco Warriors.

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Posted in 3 Rs, clothes, house stuff, issues

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Back to School Week: Sneakers 2.0

Posted on August 12, 2009 by | 1 Comment

RecyclaRecycla has two children, which means that throughout the year, she finds herself taking one child or the other to the shoe store to get new new sneakers.  If possible, she’ll scrub the tennies and pass them on to another child; however, all too often, the shoes are too beat up to be used again.

What’s an Eco Warrior to do?  That’s easy — recycle ‘em.

First off, check around your community to find out what’s available.  Does your local running shop accept old sneakers?  Is your school collecting old baseball and soccer cleats?

If you can’t find a local option, it’s time to go national:

nikeNike’s Reuse a Shoe program — Nike collects old sneakers (any brand) and grinds them up to be reused as surfaces for basketball courts, tracks, playgrounds, and more.  This is a much better solution than paving playing areas with asphalt and a great use for materials that would probably otherwise end up in a landfill.  Even better, this eliminates the need to use virgin rubber and other materials.

How do you get your shoes to Nike?  Well, if you’re lucky, there’s a collection site near you.  Check the website to find out.  This program accepts all sneakers, not just kids’.

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Posted in 3 Rs, clothes, school

Back to School Week: Blue jean baby

Posted on August 11, 2009 by | 2 Comments

RecyclaRaise your hands — how many of you wear jeans? Pretty much everyone, right?

Those of you who have Eco Kids are probably scouring the sales now, trying to find some jeans that will last the kidlets the entire school year.  Even better, it would be nice if you could find some with knees that don’t actually rip out within the first month.

So what are you going to do with your kids’ old jeans that are too grungy to pass down to a younger sibling?

If you’re crafty, there are loads of ways to recycle old Levis into bags, pillows, and more.  A quick web search will give you hundreds of possibilities.

If even crafts aren’t a good use for the old jeans, it’s time to recycle them.  Yes, Eco Warriors — you CAN recycle old jeans!  The biggest re-use of your old Wranglers is building insulation.  They are non-toxic and very Earth-friendly, plus they do a really good job.

How does Recycla know this?  Her very own house has blue jean insulation on all of the interior walls.

So how do you recycle your old jeans?  That’s a good question, because it varies from place to place.  Here in Recycla’s town, her local Whole Foods has a bin for jeans recycling; you might check your local store too.

If that doesn’t work, go to Earth 911 and find out the options near you.

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Posted in 3 Rs, clothes, house stuff

5 QUICK Money-Saving Tips

Posted on August 5, 2009 by | 9 Comments

GQ

GOING GREEN ON A BUDGET? Here’s Help:

1. Visit your local library for books, CDs and DVDs. They’re more than just books. Plus, if you play a musical instrument, they have sheet music you can check out. Great entertainment – for FREE

2. S-squared (Shoe Swap). Plan a Shoe Swap this fall. Kids outgrow soccer cleats, football shoes and track shoes so quickly it’s worth the effort. Just put a big bin on your front porch and send out an email to all the kids on your teams, at your church, or send out fliers. Have the school, your kids and their friends spread the word.

“Bring a pair of athletic shoes and take another size home with you.” Brothers and sisters will come to join in the money-saving fun. Your youngest can even set up a lemonade stand – if you want to specify times for the swap.”

3. Hang curtains over your mini blinds on HOT days. It will keep the sun from warming the inside of your house. If you don’t have any extra curtains, use sheets, you can tack them up with a few thumb tacks. It will help keep your house 10-15 degrees cooler.

4. When you’re watering your flowers, veggies or lawn, put out a couple of large mixing bowls. The sprinkling water will fill them and you’ll be a friend to the local wild life, birds, squirrels, and butterflies will swarm your yard at night. And it won’t cost you a penny more.

5. Recycle old desk calendars. Use the pictures and artwork to create your own “new” greeting cards. Quick, EZ and fun to do with your kids.

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Posted in books, clothes, living green on a budget, Uncategorized

new New Balance

Posted on July 28, 2009 by | 3 Comments

enviro girlEnviro Girl and her family have been fans of New Balance shoes for years.  Comfortably wide, well constructed and made in America (a shout out to Boston!), they’ve never been disappointed by the brand.  How lovely then to learn that New Balance is adding to its collection of outdoor shoes an “Eco-preferred collection” which will use environmentally preferred materials, constructions and manufacturing processes.  This endeavor is part of a larger corporate-wide sustainability intitiatve to become more environmentally sensitive.

The first shoe in this new Eco-preferred collection is the New Balance 70.  Combining recycled polyester in the laces, webbing, rand, quarter, tongue and saddle; fewer solvents in the foxing and shoe tip; and rice husks filler in the outsole to reduce the amounte of rubber used the New Balance 70 is stylish and earth-friendly.  Also interesting to note:  the New Balance 70 is packaged without paper stuffing or paper wrapping, reducing waste.

With a water-based adhesive joining the upper and sole unit and the upper constructed and cut with minimal layers to reduce unnecessary material waste, this shoe provides a comfortable way to tread lightly across our planet.  The New Balance 70 is available this month, retailing at $80.00 a pair.  In Enviro-Girl’s opinion that is a sharp looking “green” shoe!

WE070GN

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A New Way to Re-USE

Posted on July 24, 2009 by | 5 Comments

green queen smallTHIS BIRTHDAY IS IN THE BAG

Make lasting memories by planning a bag birthday. Just have each guest bring an old pair of jeans to the party (pants they’ve outgrown or that have too many stains/rips in the knees to wear any more) and you’re
almost set.

purses 1 003

WHAT YOU NEED:
1) An old pair of jeans;
2) Buttons, beads, or any other craft material;
3) Glue and/or glue gun; and,
4) Needle and thread and/or sewing machine

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Cut the jeans off just above the seam where the legs begin;
2) Turn inside out and sew and/or glue straight across the bottom (you
can even do this ahead of time – if you want to save time);
3) Sew a strap from the left over leg material (Boys can use two straps
to make the bag more like a backpack or fishing tackle tote);
4) Sew the strap[s] to the waistband of the jeans;
5) Embellish to suit your own personality. (You can even iron-on
patches rather than glue and/or sew) To keep the bag closed tight, use
double-sided taped Velcro at the
waistband. Put a male piece behind the center button and a female
piece directly opposite. You just peel off the paper and press the
velcro in place.

IDEA: You can even use one leg or a pocket to make small cellphone purses.
purses 032
TIP: To permanently secure: sew the edges by hand.

TIP: Have some old jeans on hand for guests who forget. Just
pick up a couple pairs of jeans at a local thrift store for a couple of bucks.Visit your local fabric and/or craft store to pick up sequins, buttons and ribbon to use to adorn the bags. These can be used as tote bags, tackle totes, backpacks or even purses. Each party guest can take a turn picking their favorite craft material from a shared bin filled with scraps of lace, ribbon, beads, contrasting fabric and buttons. Then everyone can glue their embellishments in place. When the kids leave the party, they will have their own special gift: a bag decorated in their own special style, which is sure to reflect each person’s own personality.

Kids can even hand stitch any buttons or other embellishments they want to secure to make sure they stay in place – even in the wash cycle.

This is loads of fun. Kids love designing and then decorating their own bags and will be reminded of the fun they had every time they put something inside their bag.

And what better way to celebrate another year than a party where everyone ends up with a present – not only the birthday kid?

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Posted in 3 Rs, clothes

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Fast Fact: Fill ‘er up

Posted on July 9, 2009 by | 2 Comments

This should be obvious, but you should only do laundry when you have a full load, so as to make the most of your water and energy usage. For more info, click here.

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Posted in 3 Rs, clothes, fast facts, house stuff