DOES "SECOND HAND CHIC" OFFER A VIABLE PATHWAY TO SUPPORT SUSTAINABLE FASHION? GUEST ARTICLE FROM CARY SHERBURNE
“Whether it’s for-profit or not-for-profit, these are two examples that prove that secondhand chic is one of the paths out of the massive waste associated with today’s apparel industry. Every little bit helps. But even more importantly, perhaps initiatives like these will help push brands and retailers to be more responsible with their business models.…” - Writes Cary Sherburne - WhatTheyThink
GUEST ARTICLE WRITTEN BY CARY SHERBURNE OF WHATTHEYTHINK
It seems that each and every day there is more alarming news about the state of Planet Earth. July, August and September were Earth’s hottest three months on record. This ups the ante for humans residing on Earth…
we are running out of time to change course. And the textiles and apparel industry, in particular, has a lot of work to do. In this article, we take a look at two successful businesses, one for profit and one not for profit, that are working hard to keep textile products out of landfills, redirecting them to a second life, which in turn can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and consumption levels, if only by a little. We hope their stories will educate and inspire you, and that you, too, will take some action.
Each and every day there is more alarming news about the state of Planet Earth. July, August and September were Earth’s hottest three months on record. In fact, while excessive heat in July and August might not be startling, the excessive heat in September was, at 0.89 degrees Celsius above average. The journal Science Advances reported that Earth is “outside the safe operating space.” And if you still plan to be around some 250 million years hence, the supercontinent Pangea Ultima is expected to reappear and make the planet uninhabitable for humans and other mammals. Surely ants and cockroaches will survive.
As we have noted many times in this space, the textile and apparel industry isn’t helping to change this, at least not quickly enough. As we have also said in this space, the younger consumer generations are getting more vocal—with their voices and their pocketbooks—about wanting more sustainable fashion. In the end, this is what will drive the brands and retailers to find ways to be more sustainable in a meaningful way.
One trend that is gaining momentum is what the Bank of America Institute is calling Secondhand Chic.
According to a recently published analysis, “The fashion industry contributes 10% of global emissions and a fifth of plastic waste. Increasingly, consumers are looking for ways to make sustainable choices to lessen the environmental impact of their buying decisions…a significant reduction in the environmental footprint of clothing can be made by extending its lifespan. And the secondhand market for fashion in the U.S. is growing rapidly, increasing by 24% year-over-year (YoY) in 2022.”
In addition to secondhand stores and resale apps like Poshmark, The RealReal, ThredUp, DePOP, and more, in this article we take a look at two different approaches that are making a socioeconomic difference as well as an environmental difference.
SwagCycle: A Focus on Landfill Diversion
Ben Grossman is co-President of Boston-based Grossman Marketing Group, specializing in green marketing, sustainability and more. The company was founded in 1910 and is a fourth-generation family business. Over the last decade, the company has seen significant growth, having acquired nine companies and expanding its footprint to the Southeastern United States, including two acquisitions in Sarasota, Fla.
This business success has enabled Ben to follow another dream: finding ways to divert promotional product waste from ending up in landfills. And he has done this with SwagCycle, a startup he founded four years ago focused on responsibly managing the lifecycle of branded merchandise.
“We founded SwagCycle in recognition of the fact that when companies rebrand or get acquired or change their marketing messaging, it leads to a lot of good quality merchandise becoming obsolete overnight. We found that when companies rebrand, they don’t know what to do with these products, and they end up disposing of them, not because they didn’t care about the environment, but because they just didn’t know what to do with them. We wanted to create a frictionless platform to help address this challenge of obsolete merchandise with the specific focus of landfill divergence. What I mean by that is keeping those items from going into landfills and finding some higher and better use for those goods either in the marketplace through charitable donations or through recycling and upcycling initiatives.”
To date, SwagCycle has facilitated more than $3.1 million in charitable donations on the platform and has kept more than 1.8 million units of items out of landfills.
This includes items like backpacks, water bottles, T-shirts, hats, and more. Some of the charitable initiatives these items go to include refugee camps, helping survivors of natural disasters, and providing items for summer camps, afterschool programs, and more. Grossman offers these matching services at no cost to either the donor or the recipient; the donor pays shipping to the recipient, and SwagCycle makes an attempt to find recipients located relatively near to donors to avoid greenhouse gas emissions and costs associated with long-distance shipping.
While the items are typically new and of very good quality, sometimes brands don’t want them recirculating in the marketplace. An example would be uniforms for people providing in-home services, where these things loose in the marketplace could provide a security risk for their customers. In that case, Grossman has relationships with a variety of companies that accept these items, primarily textile-based, shred them, and turn them into things like industrial wiping cloths, carpet pad fill, mattress fill, insulation materials, and even fill that goes into boxing bags in gyms. He also works with one company that can accept selected items and convert them into yarn, which can then be used in a variety of woven and knitted items.
For more details about how SwagCycle is making a difference, view the full video interview here. If your company has branded items you wish to donate, visit SwagCycle here.
Mun-2 Brings Quality, Affordable Apparel to the Dominican Republic
The Mun-2 story is for-profit, not non-profit, but nonetheless is making a significant contribution in a number of ways.
Miriam Polanco founded Mun-2 in 2010. If you speak Spanish, you’ll understand the play on words, Mun-dos…or here in the Dominican Republic where often the final “s” is dropped, Mun-do…and mundo means “world” in Spanish.
“The reason I started the business,” she says, “is that I really, really like clothing. I had a boutique in New York, and then we moved here. One day I went to a local flea market and saw all the expensive brands that were on sale, and nobody really knew about it. I thought it would be nice to open a store with a different concept, well-organized, high quality but affordable prices, and nothing on the floor.”
Today, there are 11 Mun-2 stores operating across the country, including the largest one in the capital at 1,300 square meters (14,000 square feet). She sources new and second-hand clothing in bulk from a variety of sources, including overstock and out of season new items. She has two facilities in the greater New York metro area where shipments are received and sorted. While a large percentage of what she receives does not meet her quality standards and ends up in landfills, the rest of it is shipped in containers to the Dominican Republic where, she says, nothing goes into landfills.
When we met, she had a huge inventory of items in their headquarters warehouse, which is in the process of tripling in size, including five containers (each 40,000 to 45,000 pounds) with another seven on the way.
I also visited the store in Sosua, which is in the process of doubling in size. As you can see from the images below, they really need the space.
The reason nothing goes to the landfill has to do with the quality and pricing—high-quality items at a price that is affordable here.
In the warehouse, items are again sorted, and those deemed not to meet strict quality requirements are given to the staff, who in turn can sell them at prices that are affordable for many of the lower income people, and this also gives them some extra income. Items that go into the stores, she says, always end up being sold.
The other benefit to the business is that she employs more than 200 people, providing them with much-needed jobs in a clean, safe working environment. Below are two employees in the Sosua store, Evelyn and Jolie.
The Upshot
Whether it’s for-profit or not-for-profit, these are two examples that prove that secondhand chic is one of the paths out of the massive waste associated with today’s apparel industry. Every little bit helps. But even more importantly, perhaps initiatives like these will help push brands and retailers to be more responsible with their business models.
About Cary Sherburne: Cary Sherburne is a well-known author, journalist and marketing consultant whose practice is focused on marketing communications strategies for the printing and publishing industries.
Cary Sherburne is available for speaking engagements and consulting projects. To get more information contact us. Please offer your feedback to Cary. She can be reached at cary@whattheythink.com.
