Thrift 101: The Ethics of Being a Sustainable Shopper

Hi. My name is Sofia, and I am addicted to shopping.

Specifically, I’m addicted to thrift shopping. I go at least once a week, though this past summer I’ve gone virtually every single day (and my wallet––and suitcase––have not thanked me for it). I’ve been thrifting for as long as I remember. All my clothes as a baby and toddler were second-hand, and one of my favourite childhood memories is being age four and scouring endless racks for a ballerina tutu (a la Barbie in The Nutcracker, a forgotten and underrated relic) as if the world was just one giant treasure hunt.

I had initially only ever gone thrift shopping out of necessity, as my family never had the kind of disposable income to spend on new clothes and furniture. What wasn’t passed down to me from my brother––who had, in turn, gotten his clothes from an older cousin––was bought from the thrift store down the street from my grandmother’s house. From the ages of four to fifteen, summers consisted of strolls through the sweltering Arizona heat, tugging along a wagon full of forgotten and discarded treasures, which, now that I think about it, was very Matilda of me (another relic. Sigh). But as I enter my third year of university, I have come to realise how drastically my thrift habits have changed. For one thing, I’m no longer shopping out of need––I do it for fun. It’s become my favourite pastime, and the fairly recent “boom” in the thrifting trend has only further validated me in continuing to do so. If you’ve spent any time at all on YouTube during the past year, it would be pretty difficult to not come across some kind of ‘thrift haul,’ ‘thrift flip,’ or ‘come thrifting with me’ vlog. For the first time in my life, it was actually cool to wear second-hand clothing.

Admittedly, when this first started happening, I was a little taken aback. I used to be bullied daily for wearing old and outdated clothes in middle school by the same beautiful, privileged girls that were now reclaiming thrift shopping as their own. I felt wronged. And when I started catching wind of people buying thrifted goods en masse and reselling them at curated vintage stores or apps like Depop and Poshmark, I became incredibly defensive and even a little angry. In the past, affordable, lightly-used clothing at thrift stores have made it possible for poorer communities to buy professional outfits to wear to job interviews, start their careers and catalyse upward social mobility. But as thrift shopping became trendier, in-the-know second-hand stores like Goodwill and Value Village upped their prices and effectively pushed out a lot of the lower-income customers that formerly made up their main demographic. It felt like a kind of gentrification, and it didn’t feel right.

In a selfish sort of way, I disliked the thrifting movement in the same way someone might start disliking a musician just because they started becoming “mainstream.” But this way of thinking is incredibly unproductive. Worse, it’s simply uneducated. When your favourite band starts getting tons of new fans, it’s not cause for alarm or disappointment––it’s beautiful. More and more people are connecting to the same kind of music that has touched you in some individual way, and even if they haven’t supported the band as long as you have, they still support the band as much as you do now. On a similar level, I’ve found that thrifting well and truly is for everyone. On one very important hand, yes, it definitely benefits lower-income communities in the most tangible, immediate way. But there are tons of items to go around! Each year, the world consumes 80 billion new pieces of clothing and sends 26 billion pounds to the landfill. North America alone sends over 10.5 million tons of clothing to landfills, 95% of which can’t be recycled. Scale that down even more, and you would find that the average person throws away 81 pounds of textiles per year.

A lot of this waste can be accounted for by the capitalist wet dream of “fast fashion” that dominates malls country-wide. Clothing stock is overproduced and rolled out continuously to keep up with the most current, topical trends. As a result, the vast majority of these clothes end up in landfills because they go out of style, were simply never worn, or were never even sold. In a nightmare first job experience, I spent three weeks working at Forever 21 before the unethical treatment of workers and the sickening sight of back rooms filled to the brim with mountains of stock pushed me to quit. But even in my brief stint there, my store would make upwards of $12,000 per day and closer to $50,000 on minor holidays like Memorial Day weekend (my manager once told me they make a quarter of a million on Black Friday). While buying second-hand is a personal choice and doesn’t quell this problem immediately, it is a start at rejecting unscrupulous corporations, the unethical treatment of garment workers worldwide, and the outright waste that comes from making these clothes.

Beyond the environmental impact of thrifting, the charity aspect of second-hand stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army is to use their profits from selling used clothing to fund their charitable ventures. Many of these major thrift stores are fundraising operations at their core, aiding those in need in more than one way. They provide affordable items, yes, but it is important to note that there is no solid definition of what “needy” is and no real implication that only the needy should shop there. No matter who buys the donations from these stores, the revenue garnered almost always goes towards a charity or cause. Salvation Army offers rehabilitation services, prison ministry, homeless shelters and humanitarian aid, while Value Village recycles every donation and sends their remaining revenue towards environmentally-reparative organisations. Goodwill offers job training and placement for people with disabilities––this past year alone, donations have reportedly helped Goodwill get over 186,000 people back to work.

When you really start to think of the bigger picture when it comes to thrifting, it is clear to see that the ethical and environmental merits of sustainable shopping outweigh any other reservations or hesitations. Thrift shopping benefits everyone, and can be enjoyed by everyone. Something that is this good for our environment and so beneficial to charitable organisations should be celebrated. It can be easy to slip into gatekeeping politics of something that is near and dear to your heart––especially when it hasn’t always been perceived in a positive light. But communities are almost always better and stronger because of it, and it is gratifying to see new and old thrifters alike who are proud of what they love to do. Further, I’ve found that Depop, an app I was previously extremely weary about, has provided a platform that evolves thrift stores into an individual brand and self-run business. So many of my peers that have thrifted for years and struggled to make money on their own have found an exciting and diversified population of buyers on the app that make turning a profit on affordable pieces incredibly easy and gratifying.

It would be unfair to still claim that thrifting only used to open doors for positive social and economic mobility; it still does, and now in new, unprecedented ways.

By Sofia Meisburger

Thrift shopper, country hopper, and a little business-romantic