Reuse, reduce, recycle

You probably heard this phrase already, which has almost become a mantra for the wider sustainability movement. However, many are especially pushing to focus on reusing things to reduce consumption, instead of consuming like before with the only difference of throwing the waste in a recycling bin. Why one is better than the other has various reasons, but according to many, including the US Environmental Protection Agency and an Australian study, the biggest advantage of reusing versus recycling is the amount of energy saved. This is quite intuitive, as reusing involves far less effort in terms of transport and especially material transformation than recycling.

Using an example from two weeks ago (Worn Again Technologies), getting old clothes to a facility, separating fibers of different materials and using them to make new items, is clearly more energy-intensive than just repairing the piece. Naturally, recycling does and will continue to play an important role in sustainable resource management, but we must remember that shifting towards a mindset of using things longer is a much more scalable solution than some high-tech recycling process. That's why today we will focus on the "reuse" aspect, more specifically, various digital platforms that make this easier, by connecting people to exchange used goods.

As featured in a previous post, a big contributor to climate change and overconsumption of resources is fast fashion. Luckily, there are many websites that create online marketplaces specifically for this. On Vinted and ThreadUp you can find used ordinary clothes just like you would in a normal thrift store, except the store is much bigger and has a much wider choice. Since many of the clothes on these sites mainly female customers, Grailed is mostly dedicated to men's fashion.

For more upscale fashion, The Real Real not only offers a platform to buy and sell pre-owned items, but also includes an authentication service that checks whether the items are real and not counterfeit. Tradesy, also provides a platform for buying and selling high fashion and encourages sellers to include a note about the item and its personal history written by the previous owner.

Rei sells used outdoor gear and clothing for a wide range of activities, such as water and snow sports, camping or cycling. If you have something you no longer use, you can check whether it is among the items they want and trade them in for sale. What I like about their concept is that they created a scalable solution for people who clearly enjoy nature, and want to do so responsibly.

If you are in need of new furniture but don't want to have the weight of a bunch of trees on your conscience, CORT Furniture Clearance Centers have both on and offline stores all across the US where they sell furniture used in model homes, movie sets or in corporate offices at a lower price. If you look for design furniture, then Modern Resale might be something interesting to you. They are a California-based website that focuses on selling pre-owned design furniture and, typical for middlemen, offers solutions for every part of the process, from getting the items delivered to their store, to cleaning/restoring them, to of course using their platform to find buyers quickly.

When you think about it, most of these platforms are not doing anything extraordinarily innovative, but what I like about them is that they all offer solutions to reduce your hassle in getting rid of and finding what you are looking for, all within an online space specialized in what you need. So, since there are clearly many options helping one to reduce the need for new things, perhaps the slogan "reduce, reduce, reduce" is better for a broad audience, since it is something a single individual can very much do on her/his own.