(File Photo/ paNOW Staff)

By Ronald Quaroni

Clothing Re-use

P.A. store part of growing movement to upcycle clothing

Feb 11, 2020 | 1:19 PM

A growing movement in the retail sector is seeing consumers renting outfits. Experts figure it will become a multi-billion dollar industry and a Prince Albert second-hand store manager agrees.

According to CNN Business, retailers like Banana Republic in the United States are giving customers the option of renting out clothing, a trend driven in part because shoppers are looking for a more environmentally sustainable way to stay fashionable.

Sustainability is a big part of Banana Republic’s corporate outreach. On the website of owners Gap Incorporated it says, in part, “…our climate goal is to achieve a 50 per cent absolute reduction in the GHG emissions of our owned and operated facilities globally between 2015 and the end of 2020.”

“Fast fashion has a lot of waste,” Banana Republic CEO Mark Breitbard told CNN. “This is a way to be able to have more styles without feeling like you need discard them, donate or give away.”

That trend is being adopted in Prince Albert as well.

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“More and more people are starting to be knowledgeable,” Value Village Store Manager, Eric Tkachuk told paNOW. “It takes over 700 gallons of water to make one T-shirt and over 1,800 gallons of water to make one pair of jeans. The textile industry is the world’s second largest polluter outside of the oil, gas and energy sector.”

On top of the cost savings, Tkachuk said customers, especially younger ones, want to be more environmentally responsible when shopping. There’s been an increased amount of patrons at the store, he said.

“We’ve grown our store in Prince Albert by 25 per cent over the last 12 months. Our customers are embracing it wholeheartedly,” Tkachuk said.

He explained last year the Prince Albert Value Village recycled 1.3 million pounds of materials. Tkachuk said every year North Americans throw away clothing that could be recycled or reused instead going through the pollution of making new cloth.

“A lot of people are realizing that a used pair of jeans that are slightly loved, may have been used a couple of times, shouldn’t go in the waste stream,” he said.

Value Village clothes that are not sold end up for resale to countries around the world and if their quality is too poor, Tkachuk explained they reduce them down to fibers for use in manufacturing.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story stated unsold clothes from Value Village are donated to countries around the world. In fact, the clothes are sold to other countries according to the company.

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Ron.quaroni@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @RonaldQuaroni