Top apps, websites and groups to help you reduce waste and grab a bargain or freebie (UK) : PART 2: Fashion

 

Full wardrobe

Welcome to the second in a series of posts linking useful apps and websites to help you reduce waste and save money.  This post focusses on clothes and fashion.

According to WRAP campaign Love Your Clothes an estimated 3000,000 tonnes of clothes goes to landfill in the UK every year. There is no need for any textiles to end up in landfill in the UK – the Love Your Clothes campaign promotes a more circular economy and provides lots of useful tips on extending the life of your clothes to reduce the environmental impact of clothing.

Buying  (or selling) preowned:

New clothing is resource intensive so one of the first things you can do to reduce the impact of clothing is to buy preowned whenever possible, and if you no longer want a piece of clothing, to pass it on rather than throw it away.

My favourite way to buy is by browsing my local charity shops,  or the weekly Swap Rail at the Eco Chi stall on Chichester market (if you are local you can find this near Marks and Spencer on North Street).  Clothes Swaps are another good opportunity to give your wardrobe a bit of a makeover.  But if I am looking for a specific item, online is another good way as you can often set up alerts to be notified when specific products are listed or join brand specific selling groups on Facebook.  Online is also good if you don’t have time to get into town during opening hours.  This is just a selection of the huge online opportunities to buy/ sell/ giveaway or swap.

Clothes Swap Party

Pre loved Fashion:

Ebay is perhaps the best known and the one I use most.   If you are after a particular brand or size it is easy to set up alerts as new items are listed to make sure you don’t miss out.   Good for selling too as you can reach a large market.  Many charity shops also sell through ebay so you can support your chosen charity at the same time – most offer free returns.

Re- fashion is a great new site for online charity shopping made easy with free returns in case your chosen item doesn’t fit.

Facebook marketplace can also be useful for finding great buys in your local area. Many areas also have local sell/swap groups so it’s worth searching for these groups near you.  There may be dedicated groups for school uniform or uniforms for groups such as guides and scouts.

As well as local groups I use a couple of zero waste related Facebook selling groups:

Journey to Zero Waste UK Sell/Swap/ Gift – for a whole range of items but often includes clothing while Zero Waste Fashion Swap/Sell/Buy is dedicated to clothing and fashion.

Depop  and Vinted  are both sites to browse for your style – although I haven’t used these yet personally.

Free stuff:

Freecycle and Freegle are both, as the names suggest, for free stuff .   You are more likely to find people offering a whole bag of clothes after a clearout here rather than individual items.  You can also share wanted posts asking if anyone  has what you need.

Many areas also have Facebook groups dedicated to free items.

Repair or Upcycle your clothes:

Repairing or upcycling your existing clothes and fabrics is another great way to reduce textile waste.  Love Your Clothes is a really useful resource for this – with a dedicated page for care and repair.

And back to Facebook, the Eco-Friendly Sewing UK  is helpful and friendly.

Look out for sewing  and repair meet ups in your area too.    I’ve taken a few small sewing jobs to my local repair cafe.  You can find our more about the Repair Cafe Network via this link but do note that not all local repair cafes are featured there so do search online to find your local one.  My local one is the Chichester Repair Cafe

As ever, this is just a selection of the many resources available to reducing waste when it comes to clothing and fashion.  I would love to know about your favourites – please do let me know in a comment below.

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I’m sharing this post as part of the Going Green Linky

 

 

 

Christmas Crackers – Zero Waste Style

Home made Christmas crackers

Do you enjoy having Christmas crackers but worry about the waste?

Of course they are not an essential, but they are a traditional part of the Christmas lunch table setting in the UK, and fortunately a simple one to replace with a less waste, homemade version.

I have been making my own for the last couple of years, using loo roll or other cardboard tubes and decorating with various bits and bobs saved through the year.  All you need to buy is the cracker bangs ( I found some unpackaged in lovely local shop Room No 9 in Leighton Buzzard but you can order online or find in craft shops) and your choice of gifts.

The first year I decorated them in the foil wrappers from chocolate bars.  They weren’t very neat but the family still really enjoyed them.  Next time I used some colourful pictures from a calendar and had improved the technique a little. I have saved some glossy wrapping paper that couldn’t be recycled to reuse this year.

The first step is to place the cracker bang carefully inside your loo roll or other cardboard tube and place it on top of the paper you will be wrapping it in to check for size – you want the cracker bang ends to be just covered. Mark where your cardboard tube comes to on the inside of the paper .

Then, removing the card tube again for now, carefully fold one end of the paper over to the mark you have made and cut some small slits – these will help you squeeze the ends of the paper in to tie them neatly.  It’s a good idea to try this out on a spare piece of paper first to make sure you have the slits in the right place and to see how big to make them.  Do the same at the other end.

Now, wrap the paper around the card tube with the cracker bang in and fasten with a small piece of tape.  Tie your ribbon around one end.

Now fill up the cracker with your chosen gift and joke.  I find jokes online to print out, or reuse jokes from the crackers at my work Christmas lunch – even better write your own.  We already have a set of Santa hats which are too large to fit in the cracker so we place those at the table separately but you could of course make paper hats if you prefer.

 

 

I try to source the gifts from local charity shops.  Last year I found these gorgeous wooden tree decorations which just fitted in, and which can be reused for the tree every year.  When I haven’t found anything suitably small preowned I have filled the crackers with sweets or lottery scratch cards.  Homemade sweets or biscuits would be another good idea if you can leave filling the crackers until close to the day.

Once the gifts are in, all you need to do is tie the second ribbon to close the end – and label them if you have personalised the gifts.

I’m not the most artistic or neat and tidy person so these always end up looking homemade, but there is nothing wrong with that – the family seem to enjoy them and there is hopefully no plastic tat to go straight in the bin.

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Home made Christmas crackers