My husband being in a transferrable job, we always prefer to carry less luggage everywhere. Though sometimes I fight with him over this idea of “light living and heavy thinking”. Like many other women, I too go crazy over shopping things, especially when it comes to clothes. Whenever we are getting ready for a party, he’ll always make a remark seeing me in a panic state, “you have so many clothes, still you run short of dresses when it comes to dress for a party”. Over this with a playful grin, I’ll say, “you know, celebrities do not repeat their dresses and I am no less than a celebrity”. It gives me immense joy to wear different outfits on every other occasion, but when the day of packing arrives, those heaps of clothes get on my nerves. Of late we started donating our clothes to nearby NGOs. At times that urge to declutter our house is so much that, we don’t mind paying some extra bucks for the van charges. Now, it has become a ritual in our house to donate books, clothes and stationery items every year.
What happens to the clothes we donate?
Giving old clothes or for that matter anything often fills our hearts with a pride, as if we have done a great job by helping the needy ones. But my eyes opened when I read one article related to what happens to our donated clothes. We are under a wrong impression that we are giving back to our society by donating our unwanted clothes. In realty, by doing so we are unknowingly increasing land pollution. Very easily we handover our old clothes to any nearby NGO because we want to declutter our house and live peacefully. But what about our mother earth. Who will declutter our land? Is it not our responsibility to dispose the waste clothes in a proper and systematic manner? We started googling for some recycling options and eventually came across one website, www.ecoregain.com offering recycled products. We found this concept very interesting and unique.
After visiting the office of ECO REGAIN, we came to know the importance of recycling our clothes. Until now, we never realized that our donations are not completely consumed by the needy people. Usually, we donate our clothes to orphanage or different NGOs and we get assured that are clothes have reached their perfect destination. But it is not so. Many of these clothes are not even needed by them. Sometimes, the clothes are not in a usable condition or the number of clothes is more than the persons living in these NGOs. Even if they wear the clothes what happens when they get torn. So, in due course, your donated clothes get sold off in the scrap market from where they ultimately get dumped off, adding up huge landfills.
These days, clothes are made using synthetic materials, chemicals including petroleum which turns them into non bio degradable components. Cotton clothes get decomposed in land but what about the synthetic fibers and plastic buttons that are used in their stitching. These are not decomposable. Moreover, the buying capacity of individuals have also increased as compared to the previous generations, resulting into wastage of clothes. People change their clothes following the new trends and discard their clothes within a year. The manufacturing of new cotton clothes also requires huge tons of water which again is wasting our resources just for frugal fashion purpose. Near about 80 percent of clothes from different locations get settled on the landfills every year. These clothes stay on the landfills for more than hundred years releasing harmful gases like methane and carbon dioxide in greater quantity in the process of decomposition. Furthermore, the incineration of clothes at these sites also releases greenhouse gases polluting the environment.
Recycle and Reuse
If we resolutely make decision to recycle our old clothes into something useful, it would definitely save our environment from deteriorating in near future. It is our duty to instill these values in our future generation. Recycling not only saves pollution, it also gives employment to people. Kathy Calvin has quoted, “Giving is not just about making a donation. It is about making a difference.” ECO REGAIN, is making a great difference in our society not only by saving our environment but by giving platform to lot of women. Their staff consists of creative people who revamp old clothes into stylish bags, rucksacks, pouches, carpets, durries, designer dresses etc. The denim bags displayed there caught my eye. What an amazing collection of handbags! You will be amazed to see the creativity of the artists working there. They have made a variety of sacks, kitchen aprons and even yoga mat covers from old jeans, T shirts, saris and blazers. The dress made from old neckties was out the box idea. The process is very simple and quick. We donated our old clothes in Eco Regain, they did the valuation of the clothes against Rs10/kg. We got a discount of Rs490 on the school bag we purchased against our donated clothes.
Our Experience:
While coming back, we were thrilled with the joy of contributing towards saving our mother earth. Though our contribution was tiny, but it was indeed thoughtful. We were on cloud nine when they gave us certificate of being a “Green Citizen”. We were contented to know that even our humble contribution can make so much difference in the environment. Just by donating 49 kg of used clothing we were able to save 8kg emission of CO2 gas, 0.5 kg use of fertilizers, 0.6 kg of the use of pesticides and 12,000 liters of water consumption. Our experience of associating with ECO REGAIN reminded us of our duties towards our environment. Usually, it is said that we should not boast of our charity. “Daye haath se daan karo to baye haath ko bhi pata na chale”. But this work should be shared amongst maximum readers because even if we inspire at least one person towards this noble cause of “recycle and reuse” our purpose of charity would be served.