Second Hand ≠ Second Best

Earth Day is a reminder that we only have one planet, and she isn’t too keen on how our relationship is going. Given that most of us don’t want to change our lifestyles, it’s time to start thinking about how to put less stress on the planet while still maximizing our inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. 

There has been much focus on safeguarding the future of the planet by switching to electric cars and solar arrays, there is a small change we can make as consumers that may also be helpful.  With ongoing global supply chain issues ensuring shortages of everything except shortages, it’s time we stopped looking at second-hand as being second-best. Let’s start thinking about how we can recycle, upcycle and repurpose existing items to meet our current needs.

As Annie Leonard, the co-Executive Director of Greenpeace USA,  points out in her short film, “The Story of Stuff,” here in the US, we have 5 precent of the world’s population and use 30 precent of the world’s resources. Leonard claims that less than 1 percent of the “stuff” we buy is in use one year later. Some of it ends up in a landfill, and the rest of it lingers in the dusty limbo of umpteen storage units

For years I’ve been living the second hand aesthetic, something that sets me apart from our cultural devotion to the new/now. The providence of many of the items in my life could kindly be called “curbside acquisitions.” My curbside shopping is so out of hand that I once hauled home a locked trunk that I found on the curb, with a delivery tag from 1910 on it, then had a locksmith friend open it. It contained nothing but dust from 1910.

I know that there is an excess amount of stuff in the world because I’ve spent over a decade hosting “Ladies Clothing and Thingee” swaps, where friends come together to share everything from new evening dresses to beach-reads to motorcycle jackets they no longer need. It’s the sisterhood of the traveling pantsuit! 

Given my eccentric shopping proclivities it isn’t surprising that my membership to my neighborhood “Buy Nothing” group has become indispensable. It’s part of the nationwide “Buy Nothing” project. Their tagline, “We exist for the sole purpose of building community.” There’s probably one in your neighborhood.

The buy-nothing group has been very important in the “de-ex-husbanding” of my house. Since I still live in the same house where my wasband and I resided, my therapist has (very) strongly encouraged me to make some changes in my living space to mark that things are now different in my life. Since this particular re-decorating doesn’t come from any drive to pursue an aesthetic change, I’ve been haunting my “Buy Nothing” group in order to bring on these needed ch-ch-ch-changes.

Down came the formal wedding picture, up went a canvas painted by my friend’s mother. Out went a dresser that arrived with my former husband, in came a wooden shelf from a house ‘round the corner. I put pillow covers from the Buy Nothing group on the throw pillows my ex-husband had sat on. I turned my old desk hutch into a bar…featuring a wine rack from my Buy Nothing group. 

My Buy Nothing group is the thing I look forward to most on social media. I followed the giveaway for a cat backpack for the cute cat photos. I followed one woman’s search for pool noodles, all the way through the picture of her using the pool noodles, and then the giveaway of her cute Bee -themed family’s costume featuring said pool noodles the day after Halloween. (The family costume was snapped up by someone in the neighborhood group likethat!)

In contrast to these reused items, I only really understood how much stuff we’re moving around the country, when I was at the Baltimore -Washington (BWI) airport and saw planes and planes emblazoned with “Amazon Air” lined up and ready for takeoff. I was gobsmacked realizing this wasn’t a new low-cost airline, it was Amazon orders flitting about the country..  

That fast free two-day shipping has huge costs to people and the planet. 

The deaths of six workers in a tornado that collapsed an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois during the Christmas rush (where the workers allegedly weren’t allowed to leave during the tornado) is the ugly intersection of how we’ve tormented the planet into unhappiness with our material culture and how that planetary torment has real costs in human lives. 

A letter from 23 members of Congress to Andy Jassy and Jeff Bezos sent on December 20, 2021 signals that Congress is taking these events seriously:

We are writing to express our grave concern regarding Amazon’s anti-worker policies that prioritize profits over worker safety, and appear to have contributed to the tragic deaths of six workers at your Edwardsville, Illinois,  on December 10, 2021.

Want to have a more ecologically friendly lifebut too shy to trade Halloween costumes with your voting precinct? Think about asking your neighbors to borrow items that you only need one or twice a year.  Need a punch bowl shaped like a boat for a pirate themed birthday party? In search of toddler-sized snow boots? Likely someone in your ‘hood has exactly the thing and that they’d be happy to loan you, in exchange for having the extra closet or shed space for a week. I’ve currently got a wheelbarrow/leaf barrel/ ladder sharing coop going with my neighbors, because how many wheelbarrows does one block need? Via the magic of front porch pick up, I’ve loaned my puppy training pen out to two separate households in my neighborhood, and I’ve never even met any of the people or dogs in person. 

For the sake of the planet, let’s start looking at what we’re buying and the reason we’re buying it.  

With the weather heating up and the seasons changing, it might be time to start focusing on how you can give your wardrobe a spring refresh with less stress on the environment. Step away from fast fashion, because it’s the worst for the plant. Earthday.org reports that the fashion industry is responsible for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. And according to the Princeton University report  “The impact of fast fashion on the environment” the disintegration of cheap fabrics used in fast fashion are responsible for 35 % of the microplastics in the atmosphere.

For the peak in sustainable spring style this Earth Day, shop vintage, shop upcycled and shop your closet. 

Mother earth knows all the cool kids are doing it.