Question - how dirty is your closet? We’re not talking about dust or stray gravy stains, but rather how much your clothes are costing the planet. ThredUp, the world’s largest online consignment and thrift store, has the answer. It’s just launched a Fashion Footprint Calculator. Translation? An in-depth quiz, designed in collaboration with independent research firm Green Story, that delves into your buying, washing, recycling and repairing habits when it comes to your wardrobe.
The questions, and I speak from experience, will make you hot under the collar. How many items of clothing do you buy a year? What percent of your clothing purchases do you return? How many clothing items do you rent a year? The information boxes beside them also make for uncomfortable reading, for example, ‘Only 50% of returned garments are restocked by traditional retailers, and a staggering 25% of them end up in landfill.'
The end results page is equally fascinating. It calculates your fashion footprint on a scale from low to high, telling you how many lbs of carbon emissions your fashion habit contributes to global warming - the average being 1620 lbs - and what the equivalent number of flights would be between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Most importantly, it has plenty of suggestions for how to reduce your footprint going forward. Why not clean up your laundry, swap buying for renting or shop brands, like Patagonia, making new clothes from old clothes? There’s no time like now.
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