A popular clothing store close to campus is offering benefits for recycling clothing through an online thrift store as a way to reduce clothing waste.

Reformation has paired up with ThredUp to create a program focused on reusing clothes and saving materials.  

“You send in all your old clothes that you aren’t using anymore, that are in good condition,” sophomore Lauren Thompson said. “You get store credit at Reformation.”

ThredUp is sells and buys clothes online, while the brick and mortar and online Reformation sells items made from sustainable materials and recycled clothing. Their newly formed Reformation X ThredUp program offers credit at Reformation to people who send in clothes to ThredUp.  

Reformation creates “kits” for sending in clothes, an empty shipping bag with instructions on what Thredup will accept and decline. The user must activate the shipping label through Reformation’s website. Once done, the items are sent free to ThredUp, and the sender will be notified on their credit to Reformation through email. 

ThredUp will use approximately 40% of the items in an average clothing bag, with the rest of the clothes being reused or recycled, according to Reformation. 

“ThredUp is good for the environment and you get store credit [for Reformation] so you can get new clothes, but you are not using new fabric and negatively impacting the environment,” Thompson said. “I think everyone should try and use ThredUp because it is a good way to get more clothing and to make less of an impact with our waste.” 

“Last year we worked together to save 10 billion gallons of water, which is the same as 15,784 Olympic swimming pools and 128 million pounds of carbon dioxide, which equals 8,111 household’s yearly electricity use,” according to Reformation.

The impact of selling a used garment extends its life by 2.2 years, reducing carbon waste and water usage by 73%, according to Reformation the company claims.

Americans buy five times as much clothing than they did in 1980.

“My sister and I have been trying to support ThredUp because it’s a super easy way to shop in an eco-friendly way,” Thompson said. “The world is in a pretty bad place right now and this company created an easy way to reuse materials so anyone who has clothes they don’t wear anymore can find a use for them.”