More Than A Thrift Store

This is a special feature for our The Recycle Challenge newsletter to inform consumers on other options to recycle their unwanted clothing. To see our August article on Buffalo Exchange - a company that provides an excellent option to selling your gently used, unwanted clothing.

By Tive Ijoko

What do you normally do with the clothes you don’t want anymore? Maybe you give them to someone you know, drop them off at a donation center, or if we’re being honest, leave them sitting in a bag somewhere for months because you haven’t figured out what to do with them yet.

If that last one sounds familiar, Out of the Closet might be worth checking out.

Located on Magazine Street in New Orleans, the thrift store gives you a place to donate clothes, shoes, accessories, household items and other things you no longer need. Instead of those items going to waste, they get another chance to end up in someone else’s closet or home.

And if you like to thrift, dropping off a donation might turn into a shopping trip of your own. Donors receive a discount if they decide to shop while they’re there. You drop off a bag, look around for a minute, and might leave with something completely different. That’s recycling, right?

But the part I found most interesting actually had nothing to do with the clothes.

Upstairs, there’s a clinic that offers STD testing, and they’re also working on adding a pharmacy inside the building. I wasn’t expecting all of that from a thrift store, but that’s what makes this one a little different. The money the stores make helps support HIV care and services through the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, so the things people donate are doing more than simply getting a new owner.

If you’ve been to Buffalo Exchange, you already know another way to keep clothes in circulation. The difference is that Buffalo Exchange buys the pieces it wants from you. You can take cash or store credit and they resell those items. Here, you’re donating your items instead, and the proceeds help support the organization’s work.

One isn’t necessarily better than the other. It really depends on what you want to do with the things you’re getting rid of. Have a few nice pieces you’d like to make some money from? Try selling them. Have a bag of things you just want out of your closet? Donate them. And of course, passing clothes along to friends or family works too.

The point is, getting rid of something doesn’t have to mean throwing it away.

So when that closet clean out finally happens stop  by Out of the Closet and give those clothes somewhere else to go. Somebody might be happy you did.