The other day I read in a syndicated advice column that a person should not give used clothing to Goodwill or some similar resale charity, unless its general quality were something she herself would wear. Actually, that’s not particularly good advice. Enterprises that deal in large volumes of used clothing pick out the best items for resale in their retail shops and sell the rest in bulk to recyclers – mostly in Asia, these days – which separate the items by fiber content for re-manufacture into products such as paper and carpet underlay. As long as the clothing item is clean and has a mostly natural fiber content, there’s a market for it.
Judging by what is thrown out in the University town where I live, a great many Americans treat clothing and bedding almost as disposable commodities, tossing them in the trash when they show the least sign of wear, or have simply ceased to be new. I begin to suspect that throwing a perfectly usable item in the dumpster, rather than selling it or giving it away, is part of the syndrome of shopping addiction. Evaluating the old item as worthless may somehow reinforce a person’s perception that it is necessary to buy a new one to replace it.
I am quite the opposite when it comes to clothing, bedding, and household linens. For the most part, I acquire such things second hand – sometimes from resale shops, but often from people who know that I can and will use them. I use things in their original form until they are conspicuously worn and cannot easily be repaired. At that point the buttons go in the button box and the remains of the garment go in the rag bag, or rather bags, because in my household economy the final destination of a rag depends on its weight and fiber content.
I make tote bags out of old jeans, and in theory I make rugs out of old wool. I say in theory, because I have not actually made a rug, and that accumulation may end up being given away. Old sheets have a myriad of uses. I remember my mother cutting very worn cotton sheets down the middle and sewing the edges together to get a bit more wear out of them, before cutting them up for cleaning rags. This was not a matter of economic necessity for her, but old habits of frugality die hard. In my house, the cotton sheets are converted directly to cleaning rags. The ones with high polyester content, which never seem to actually wear out but become dingy and threadbare, are used as lining for totes and interfacing for various clothing items.
Worn-out t-shirts and towels make wonderful cleaning rags. I do not understand the person who will scrupulously buy the “green” brand of paper towels and think himself environmentally conscious as he tosses wads of dirty paper into the trash alongside a worn or damaged t-shirt. It would be far more environmentally conscious to wipe up the spill with the t-shirt. Most personal and household applications employing disposable paper goods can just as well use rags, and in many cases the cloth option is superior. Of course, one must then wash the rags. That’s no big deal if you’re wiping up spilled milk, but most people would balk at substituting a rag bag for the toilet paper roll.
I find there is something homely and comforting about a rag bag. Digging into it brings back memories of childhood in a less throwaway culture, when pop bottles were actually refilled, and patches put on clothing to extend its wear rather than as a fashion statement, and the butcher paid us five cents a pound for the cans of bacon fat. It’s nice when nostalgia has a practical application too, providing tools to cope with a changing world in which the sorts of thrift that were second nature to our grandparents, and still a part of life in our parents’ generation, are experiencing a revival as environmental responsibility and may soon become a necessity.
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I too grew up in a home with a rag draw under the kitchen sink. Mine’s the bottom shelf of the broom closet. Not getting a drink with paper cup or new glass cup. Use the same glass until it is visually dirty. Watched mom roll the top oy paper bags to use as garbage bags. Now I do. My brother and I would go to Hayward field after a football game and picked up empty beer and coke bottles to return to our neighborhood market for redemption. Long before the bottle bill – all to be refilled. Most companies and venders didn’t have Styrofoam or other one use packaging. Tin foil was always saved for reusing. Butcher paper wasn’t a craft paper – it was used to wrap meat at the butcher shop. I’ll stop now.
This is a very pragmatically stated, eminently practical approach. I’m a hoarder/recycler by both upbringing (not poor by any means, but conscious of waste, always) and choice. It whiffs of smugness, I know, and I do not claim by any extent to live a life that is either Green or in any sense, Pure. Nevertheless, I think that simple pragmatic so-called commonsense works when coming to assess how to use or discard items around the house. Including so-called ‘waste’. William McDonagh puts it elegantly – but he’s rich, which makes it hard to take what he’s saying to heart (the same, unfortunately, for Stella McCartney, or Yoko Ono, or Bono, or any of the other icons who stand ‘above’ us and indicate a course of action). Nevertheless, those among us who live on the periphery, as it were, for reasons of choice or conviction – but not necessarily for reasons of ideology, since lots of us have given up on ideology – recognise that we must ignore the mixed messages of the media and make our own decisions based on a rough mathematical calculation of how much energy, and the quality of that energy, it takes to make something, and where it will go afterwards. Nothing is straightforward about this kind of decision making. It requires a lot of conscious awareness and often, a lot of work. Can we afford it? sometimes not. Sometimes the pressure to simply decide on economic grounds is overwhelming. But that need not discourage us. Whenever there is an opportunity to choose, we can consider the choices available. Personally, I’m not an idealist. But I still think that working on the basis of the kind of ecology or environment one woulld like to inhabit is a good way of informing choices. There’s much that is easy to dismiss with this attitude. Nevertheless, there is also some fundamental elements that are hard to ignore.
Nicely stated… I also utilized old towels, and cotton whatever for rags. The contents of our rag basket is continuously cycling in and out of the laundry.
I love the fact that in the rag basket is memories of a time long ago, something that has moved forward with me in life becoming useful in different ways. Once a beach towel, then a nieces sun dress and finally mopping floors. Once large and colorful now threadbare and smaller than a hand towel.
I find myself with favorites in the rag-bag, sometimes for their efficiency and sometimes for the happiness associated with them.
Refreshing to hear from a kindred mindful, frugal re-user of all things. I too represent a long line of women who would not think of throwing away something for which there could be found a use…with some very imaginative applications indeed! Prior to arriving at the garbage pail and thus the landfill or the burn pile, many if not most items can literally be used to the point that very little of the original item remainins to be thrown away. Thanks for sharing this bit of basic wisdom from a simpler time, Martha. A positive upswing about a downturned economy is that more people find the motivation to buy less non-necessities, thus contributing to a healthier planet on a variety of levels.