Reducing Our Carbon Footprint by Thrifting

We heard of an iceberg melting in the Arctic a while ago. At that time, we might think that the Arctic is quite far away from our country, we would not get the direct impact like anytime soon. We also saw pictures of animals and plants dying because of drought. Well, we still can eat rice or meat today. We don't have to worry, right?

But how about deadly floods that recently happened in developed countries like Germany and Belgium? A super typhoon in the Philippines also just occurred in that country recently. When I write this post, a strong wind blew across West Jakarta. We might start to think that climate change does happen.

Climate change happened because of changes in land use. People cut trees in forests to make urban areas and agricultural areas, whereas the forest absorbs carbon and it can prevent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Most emissions also come primarily from burning fossil fuels--e.g., coal--for energy use. Although we are cutting or burning trees and we are not coal business actors, but take note that every person in the world also leaves a carbon footprint. It means we are contributing to GHG emissions. The biggest carbon footprint that is close to our daily life is.. fashion.

Clothing affects every other environmental problem

Let’s say we wear a cotton T-shirt — it required thousands of gallons of water to make. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) states that it takes 3,781 liters of water or emits around 33.4 kilograms of carbon to make a pair of jeans, from the production of the cotton to the delivery of the final product to the store. 

How about polyester, nylon or acrylic? These fabrics contain plastic and it will junk up our oceans with microplastic pollution when those plastic clothes get washed. Now imagine if we are buying a lot of new clothes in a month. Imagine if clothing companies keep producing clothes made of cotton or polyester. Don't forget that factories use burning fossil fuels to make textile ink for our wardrobes.

Let's thrift!

Since we are not policymakers and business actors, the feasible solution for us is to buy less and wear longer to extend the life of all clothes. If we are bored, we can buy second-hand clothes. There is a lot of thrift shops that sell good quality second-hand apparel. And sometimes we will find hidden gems such as branded clothes, vintage or limited fashion items.

Me and my second-hand clothes.

The thrifting concept is not new for me. I love thrifting since I was in high school. Bandung, my home city, is well known for its big second-hand clothing market, namely Cimol or Cibadak Mall. My friends and I love to go there because we can get decent clothes for IDR 10.000 or less than one dollar. Instead, clothes are often sold in a bulk. We can get one sack of second-hand clothes only for IDR 600.000 or USD 42. 

Many people buy one sack of clothes, resell it, and mark up the price three or four times than before. Somehow it makes me angry because I want to support this slow fashion movement, I want to reduce my carbon footprint and contribute to saving our planet, but these people take advantage by selling with new prices as expensive as a new one. That does not make sense!

So my win-win solution is I am looking for an online thrift store that sells at an affordable price or below IDR 50.000 for a jacket.

Anyways, I hope you can find a thrift shop and get a good deal. The important thing is not about to buy affordable products as much as possible. But let's reduce our carbon footprint by doing small things: be conscious of what we buy and what we wear.