With the spring season and the end of the winter semester quickly approaching, it is important to take some time to realign ourselves after what seems like an endless winter. This may come in the form of enjoying the dearly missed sunny weather by having a picnic with close friends and family, going on a walk, starting a spring garden, or even venturing to see some cherry blossoms. From my own experience, I’ve noticed that a really good spring cleaning gets me out of my winter-mode and draws out the clutter and stress that I may have been holding onto during the school year. I do this by essentially gutting my entire living space and making the difficult but rewarding decision of letting go of the items that no longer benefit me or positively affect my life. This declutters the space that I practically hibernated in and welcomes the arrival of a new season and new opportunities. With the goal of cleaning out my space, the question of how to do so sustainably arises. As every new spring season comes along, I ask myself how I can do better than I did the year before, and how I can put my best sustainable foot forward.
Sustainable spring cleaning involves a variety of methods that can range from the cleaning products we use to the method of disposal of our unwanted items, such as furniture, decorations, or clothes. I typically leave the cleaning out of my closet as my last spring cleaning activity. Something about looking back at all the different outfits I wore in the past year and deciding how my closet will accordingly reflect my aesthetic moving forward brings me so much happiness. But the big question still arises: how do I clean out my closet sustainably?
Firstly, I should address the rather negative side of spring cleaning our closets. Capitalism and fast fashion encourage consumers to constantly be in a vicious cycle of purchase, use, dispose, and repeat. It is important to identify our motivation and end-goal for cleaning our closets out:to curate a more sustainable closet. The bottom line is, the more sustainable our clothes are, the longer they can stay in our closets. But often, as it is in my case, to spend an entire paycheck towards a completely sustainable wardrobe and getting rid of all of my old clothes is just not feasible or realistic. For a number of years now, I have embarked on a journey to slowly purchase more sustainable clothes that I know will last for a longer time, while still keeping pieces that have already been with me for a while. It is imperative that we do not completely blur the lines between disposability culture, a trendy greenwashing method to mask consumerism, and sustainability.
With that being said, there are definitely still ways to spring clean our closets sustainably!
Upcycling/Repurposing:
To upcycle is to put life back into a worn piece of clothing. This can be done by amateur sewers, experts, or people who have never picked up a needle and thread before. There are countless tutorials online that can show you fun and creative ways to repurpose old clothes like sewing patches over rips or tears, putting in new and fun buttons, bleaching clothes, resizing outfits, or making your own frays around rips. These are just a few of the ways you can upcycle the clothes that you don’t wear so often anymore but can’t let go of.
Repurposing has a similar idea but with a different end goal – to create something completely different from your old clothes. This may be using old tees as cleaning rags, patching together old clothes to make a tablecloth, or sewing scraps together to make something like a new and unique handbag.
Donating:
As you clean out your closet, you will find some items that you really do need to part with. In that case, donating your good condition clothes to shelters, charities, or thrift stores is a positive alternative! Below are a few places you can donate your clothes to in Kingston:
- The Salvation Army: 277 Bath Rd.
- St. Vincent de Paul Society: 85 Stephen St.
- The Goodway Thrift Store: 844 Division St.
Resell:
Connecting back to a previous blog post I wrote, there are a
multitude of avenues for reselling old good condition clothes. This long list includes selling on instagram, through friends, or on sites such as Vinted, Poshmark, or Depop. A fun idea if you have lots of clothes to giveaway may be to hold an in-person event where people can come by and purchase your clothes off of you.
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