Clothing: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Americans throw away a lot of clothing. Believe me, a lot of clothing. Our church thrift shop sifts through a lot of it. I can’t believe what they throw away. If it’s stained or torn it goes into the garbage can. Literally. I volunteer there occasionally on Saturday, and enjoy my work meeting the public and sharing the love of Jesus; however, the real heroines work on Tuesday. That’s sorting day. These gals go through everything that’s donated which can be a very dirty job. They are ruthless. They have to be. When I realized how much they threw away I volunteered to find an outlet for the trash.
Anita, a friend of a friend, collects old t-shirts and repurposes them. She makes t-shirt tote bags, cuts them into strips and makes throw rugs and makes pouches from the left over sleeves. Grace Market Place in Gainesville, FL distributes these to homeless men coming into their store looking for help. Inside the pouch are various handy items: q-tips, bandages, dental floss, etc.
Pouches made from t-shirt sleeves.
Unfortunately, I don’t stop the disposal of lots more clothing items. I was working on that when Covid-19 hit. No more thrift shop activity until the quarantine is lifted. After that, I hope to take all their throw-aways and give them a new purpose. I reached out to a company that deals in disposed clothing. A company employee emailed me back and said I needed to have 40,000 pounds of clothing before they are interested.
Woo-hee!
That’s a tall order. My friend, Cheryl, says someone at Grace Market Place bags up the throw-away clothes and sells them to a company for eight cents a pound. I’m hoping we can tag onto their coat tails.
We truly are the throw-away society . . . but God is not.