Ecologically clothes-minded

Above is $32 worth of second-hand glory.

There’s a system of bike paths that cuts through Northern Virginia, connecting the outlying burrows of DC to its city center. This time of year the path is draped with dramatic bursts of color, popping from the Magnolia trees, Cherry Blossoms, and other varieties of splendor I have yet identify. Without getting too Tolkien on you with the landscape, suffice it to say rain really brings out the color. If you’ve ever read the Celestine Prophecy, then you’ll understand how the colors of Northern Virginia’s landscape emanate beyond their spatial parameters.

Anyhow, I went shopping in Crystal City today after a four mile longboard in the rain with Ileana and her best friend Lydia. Shopping and I are pretty much incompatible. If I do go, it's about twice a year in a “let’s get in and get the hell out” time of mindset. But today was a special occasion. I shopped consignment and the proceeds went to the Junior League of Washington. 

If you’re ever contemplating shopping for clothes, I highly recommend consignment.  It’s a thrill to think about how much money you’ve saved – I got two pairs of casual pants, three dressy shirts, a pair of socks, and two kitchen towels for $32. But even better than the money, and the charity, was the environmental perk of it all. Because I bought used clothes, greenhouse gasses weren't emitted in the production of new clothes, carbon expended in the clothes' transport was minimal (items were donated by individuals of the charity hosting the event, so transportation merely involved getting those items to the event) and I didn’t add to the conversion of natural resources into consumer goods. 

According to a BBC article, “it takes ten times more energy to make a tonne of textiles than it does a tonne of glass, and when you throw wool and cotton clothes into landfill, they produce methane.” Methane is estimated to have a warming effect about 25 times as great as CO₂, according to the article.