Instead of letting the clothes go to a landfill, where they can cause a host of environmental problems, Suay has rescued 50,000lbs of textiles so they can be cleaned, sorted and upcycled by professional designers and sewers. Since LA currently has no permanent textile recycling or collection, it’s up to groups like Suay to save as many textiles as possible before they get dumped or exported.
“To see the overwhelming influx of textiles donations here in Los Angeles in response to the devastating wildfires just shows how the current systems in place have failed us all,” said Suay’s co-founder and CEO Lindsay Rose Medoff. “We have to draw the connections to our everyday consumption and disposal habits. Until we draw these connections, the same overproduction that is impacting our climate and resulting in these disasters will continue to strengthen.”
I miss thrift stores being thrift stores.
I only got to experience the tail end of the good days. Once they all started pricing things in the context of the national or global market, instead of their local community, things got bad.
Yeah. Amazon is cheaper than any Thrift store. That is not how it should be.
That overpricing started decades ago when Value Village and Savers (Canada & America) opened up their first for-profit stores under the guise of sending part of the profits to the diabetes society and other non-profits. But there is no public info I can find stating what percentage is donated, so it’s likely mininal at best.
Now Value Village is owned by private equity firms Ares Management and Crescent Capital Group. Make of that what you will knowing how private equity firms operate.
Gross.