Wouldn’t it be cheaper to go naked?
It would absolutely be cheaper to go naked. And my kids would love it if they could leave the house without putting on those pesky clothes. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) our laws prohibit us from exposing ourselves in public. So we are forced to buy clothes.
For some, shopping is like big game hunting. It’s a sport to see how much of their paycheck they can spend on clothing. TV makes it look sexy. $700 on a pair of thigh-high boots was the theme of a recent “Are You There, Chelsea?”. Gabby of “Desperate Housewives” is always off spending inordinate amounts of money on clothing. It seems a glamorous life wearing expensive clothes that are so new and so expensive few others will be seen in them.
For others, clothes are an expensive necessity ordained by their employer. We all have to look ‘professional’ now don’t we. The motto is ‘Dress for the job you want, not the job you have’. Too bad we don’t get paid for the job we want so we can afford the clothes to go along with it.
And then there are those of us who have to dress ourselves for the jobs we want, and our kids for daycare or school. That’s where it gets really expensive. Kids have the grow switch in the full on position. They outgrow clothes faster than we can wash them.
You paid what for that polo?
No matter what your situation in life, clothes are expensive. I was perusing the Kohls online store while doing research for this article. To make my point, I decided to put together a week’s worth of outfits that would be appropriate for my job as a mid-level IT employee. This would consist of Khaki type pants, and either a polo or button up shirt. Were I in management, the expectations would be even higher. The pants ranged anywhere from $30 to $70. The shirts were a little cheaper at $15 to $40. Those are sale prices. Regular prices are $15 to $20 above that. I found a Bugatchi polo shirt on zappos.com for $95. Can you imagine? $95 for a single shirt! Incredible. That shirt had better launder itself at that price. So to get a weeks worth of outfits, let's take the mean price for the pants at $50, and the mean of the shirts at $28. That gives us a daily cost of $78 per day. Multiplied by 5 for a work week’s worth of clothing. That gives us a grand total of $390. If you are like me, and you have a set of Winter shirts and a set of Summer shirts, you’ll need to tack on another $140 to cover that cost. I haven’t even included shoes or ties. And that’s just the cost of clothing for me. That doesn’t even begin to cover my wife or two growing boys.
The Environmental Costs
I’ve covered the obvious monetary cost of clothing, but let’s crawl under the covers and look at the hidden environmental costs. You won’t find these on the price tag at JC Penny. It’s hard to put a price tag on something like hunger, or pollution. This is a call to all of us to look at every single purchase that we make and realize there is a dirty, hidden cost.
Starving People in Asia
According to worldhunger.org, there are 925 million undernourished people in the world. 578 million of those are in Asia and the Pacific. And cotton.org says that China is a leading grower of cotton. Since most of the clothing that we buy comes from China and is made of cotton, it would stand to reason that if we bought less clothes, China would produce less clothes. The demand for cotton would go down, and that would free up some land in China for growing food. That food could then be distributed to the hungry people of the region.
Keep on Trucking
At the time of writing, the US national average for a gallon of gasoline is $3.94. Diesel is much higher at $4.15/gallon. I couldn’t even begin to calculate the fuel costs to get a single shirt from China to your favorite department store. I’ll leave that to the logistics companies. Cargo boats use a massive amount of fuel, but they transport a massive amount of goods. The same can be said for trains and trucks. Although trucks are much less efficient at moving goods than ships and trains. An interesting article that I stumbled across, suggests that a large container ship emits as much pollution as 50 million cars. That number is astounding. But pollution is not the only concern. Oil is a finite resource, and I don’t think we’ll see oil free transportation for many, many years.
Daddy? Do Pants go to Heaven?
No, son. They go to a landfill, where they sit and rot. Hopefully the landfill is harvesting some methane, but that’s a story for another day. The people that pay the biggest price are the those that live next to the dumps. Trucks go in and out all day long, spewing diesel particulates. Causing asthma, and all sorts of other respiratory diseases. These landfills are taking up precious acreage that could be used for growing food to help our own starving people. They could be parks, or any number of beautiful things. Instead they are dirty, smelly, heaps of trash. Things we’ve discarded. Things we probably should have never purchased in the first place.
People Change
I think that our society has actually devolved from Ancient Greek and Roman times. Not only were the robes and togas fashionable, they were also very practical. People were free to gain or lose weight at will without having to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe! Just loosen the cinch a little, and they were good to go. Seriously though. People change. We gain weight and lose weight. Our favorite bands break up invalidating our favorite T-Shirts. We get married to people who think tie dye is stupid. We get divorced and buy tie dye again. The point is, not every purchase can be avoided.
The Answer, and why Goodwill Rocks
As you’ve probably guessed from the title, I’m a huge fan of Goodwill. They are a great organization with a great mission. They build stores based around donated items. Giving employment opportunities, training, and development services to millions of people. If that’s not enough, they are even eco conscious.
My love for Goodwill is arguably much more selfish. It is a great place to buy quality, used clothing at a fraction of the price that you’d pay for the same item if purchased new. The clothes are clean, and in the best possible shape. Most of the time we pay no more than three or four dollars for an item of clothing. Sometimes we’ll even find the original tag on an article of clothing. It hasn’t even been worn! We are not talking about leisure suits from the 70’s (they have those too, if that’s your thing). We are talking about contemporary clothing. My guess is that they are donated by people that have gained or lost weight. Or maybe they got something that didn’t fit for Christmas, and rather than bothering to exchange it, they just donated it. To make things even more unbelievable, Goodwill has a discount card! If you have a Goodwill or similar store in your area, there is really no excuse to not buy your clothes there.
Every item of clothing donated and purchased at Goodwill extends the life of that item. That means that the cotton doesn’t have to be grown to make that shirt or pair of pants, because it’s already made. It doesn’t have to be freighted from China or India or Taiwan, or wherever. It’s already here. And because it was donated rather than thrown out, someone else (maybe you) can get some use out of it, rather than it rotting in a landfill.
The Abbreviated Version
In summary. Clothes are insanely expensive. The price is paid not only by your wallet, but by the environment. The good news is, you can do something about it. Buy used clothes. If you refuse to buy used, even though the benefits are obvious, at least consider buying clothes that were produced in the country in which you live. This will save on oil consumption used in transporting the items across the ocean and provide people with much needed work. Finally, if you have some clothes that you want to get rid of, please donate them to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, or some other charitable organization, rather than throwing them out. This simple act will help in ways that you can not imagine.
-Brian