Value Village: An Underestimated Value in our Village

When you think of being green, what comes to mind? Separating waste from recyclables? Reusable containers? Turning off the lights? Now, imagine entering a vintage clothing store. What do you see?

So, what do second-hand stores and being green have in common? Promoting environmental sustainability. Most do not automatically associate vintage stores and environmentalism. The ecological impact of recycling clothing is often underestimated, and thought of as an economically conscious act rather than an environmentally sustainable one.

Currently, the average North American disposes 68 pounds of clothing per year, which amounts to an overpowering 48 percent of total consumer waste. Textile recycling companies lighten the load on the environment by selling 35 percent of the 20 billion pounds of textile waste each year as used clothing. In doing so, second-hand stores enable the consumer to counteract his wasteful actions. The average consumer buys 10 pounds of second-hand clothing each year, thereby preventing 2.5 out of the 20 billion pounds of clothes from hitting North American dumpsters.

In order to gain a more tangible account of the impact of recycling clothing, I set off to interview second-hand shoppers at the local Macleod Value Village.

My interviews begin with a teenager who explains it is her first time shopping at Value Village, as she is new to Canada. She confesses that she shops purely for economic reasons: “the clothes are too cheap to pass up.”

A new mother estimates that she shops at the Macleod Value Village twice a month, buying two articles per visit. Her annual 150 item intake is offset by her return of all undesired items to a community drop-off centre. She explains that recycling clothing is “an aspect of her lifestyle,” and that she comes to support her belief in “not being wasteful” and “not letting things go to the landfill.”

Next, an elderly couple divulges that they shop at Value Village “at least twice per month, and leave with two items per visit.” They shop for “mainly economic reasons” while holding an environmental belief in “recycling everything.” There are an array of reasons for shopping at Value Village, most of which hold economic values over environmental ones.

I proceed to meet with Stan, the Operations Manager at the Macleod Value Village. He explains that the store receives a delivery of one and a half semi-trucks of clothes each week. Inside these trucks are 70 to 80 thousand items of “garbage, gold, or mould.” The location sells the majority of this clothing, which adds up to millions of items recycled per year. The Macleod Value Village has a definite impact on reducing the 20 billion pounds of clothing dumped in North America each year.

Most do not understand the extent of the impact of our clothes on the environment, and remain unaware of the association between environmentalism and recycling clothing. For this reason, the “value” in Value Village tends to draw attention to its economic advantages. However, its perceived value should be reconsidered, shifted, and inflated to its environmental benefits rather than its economic ones.