There are many ways that buying from thrift stores can be the right choice. One Redditor highlighted one particularly great thrifty find.
A Redditor posted a picture of a colorful array of numerous hanks of yarn they bought at a thrift store with the title: "Goodwill yarn find. It cost me $17. New would have cost me about $120."
The image appeared on the popular Reddit community r/ThriftStoreHauls, which has more than 2.6 million members.
We all know buying second hand items at thrift shops can save us money. But other beneficiaries can include our atmosphere, our waterways, and the entire planet.
Yarn has more functions than just something we use to entertain cats. It is also used in textile production to make clothing.
The clothing industry produces 100 billion garments each year, while more than 100 million tons of textile waste gets sent to landfills year after year.
The fashion industry produces between 2% to 8% of all planet-warming carbon pollution and creates 20% of all wastewater globally while water is becoming an important commodity in a warming planet.
The textile industry itself accounts for one-fifth of all plastic waste thrown away each year globally, while only 13% of all clothing and footwear gets recycled in the U.S.
Buying secondhand clothing or the materials used to make it, such as yarn, from thrift stores can save shoppers $1,700 a year on average. Not to mention it prevents new clothing from being produced and eventually ending up in landfills, getting incinerated, or finding itself in the planet's ecosystems, leaving that large trail of wastewater and air pollution behind.
Reddit users had plenty to say about the bargain.
"Yarn't gonna get a better deal than that!" one commenter said.
Another added: "Mine auctions everything on their shop goodwill dot com site, even the scrap balls of acrylic."
"Cascade yarns for a buck each! Wow! They look quite lovely," another Redditor expressed.
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