Why Second-hand?

Over-consumption is having a seriously negative environmental impact on the planet, while exploitative labour and unsafe working conditions are commonplace in our supply chains.

For the future of our planet, this insatiable demand on rapidly diminishing resources like land and water simply cannot continue. #Secondhandfirst Week is dedicated to celebrating the power of reusing the clothes and other resources we already have. Sourcing more of our clothes (and other goods) second-hand is a practical way of immediately adopting a more sustainable way of living. In doing so we:

• • Reduce consumption
  • Reduce our use of increasingly scarce resources
  • Reduce waste and carbon emissions
  • Place more value on the things we already have
  • Extend the life cycle of wearable clothes and other material objects
  • Source clothes in more interesting and socially beneficial ways, like charity shops, swapping, lending and making

The benefits of dramatically increasing our use of second-hand goods also includes a social and cultural dimension that has the potential to transform us from individual consumers into collective citizens, that connects us with communities and people rather than material objects, and that loosens the grip of advertising and corporations on shaping our style and identity.