Benefits of donating and selling unwanted clothes to second-hand shops exceeds expectations

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - If you're doing some spring cleaning, donating or selling unwanted items to a second-hand shop can make more of a difference than you'd think. Buying secondhand clothing can have social, environmental, and economical benefits.

Joshua Weitzman is the executive director at Alpha Resource Center in Santa Barbara. He advocates for intentional shopping; either by investing in quality pieces or buying them second-hand. Bags and bags of clothes get dropped off everyday at their donation center to be sorted, "We stop so many items from getting just discarded when they have life left in them," Weitzman shares. But the company's mission is so much bigger than that.

Alpha Resource Center empowers people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, a cause Weitzman is deeply connected to, "My daughter who's 17 and son who's 13 going to be 14, they both have Down Syndrome. For me, there's a personal element to it and as I watch other families, of what the future is going to look like for people with developmental disabilities. More inclusion, ore opportunities, more ability to be in community contributing."

The non-profit offers programs in collaboration with schools and pediatricians - creating a foundation for their adult lives. According to Weitzman, "[Alpha] now employ[s] some of the participants in our programs."

But all of this can't be done without donations from the community. 50% of Alpha's profits come from clothes. Second-hand shopping keeps trash out of the landfills and money in our pockets.

The Closet Trading Company on State Street is also combating over-consumption and over-production. And the numbers are staggering. Buying just one T-shirt second-hand saves 713 gallons of water from soil to store.

According to The Closet Trading Company's Chief Operations Officer and Co-owner, Taylor Lamber Cavalli, "About 50% of items produced never actually get sold . . . within that figure only 1% actually ends up being recycled."

The Santa Barbara-based business tries to deter consumers from fast fashion. Stores and brands like Shein, Temu, and Amazon that sell mass produced, easily discarded clothing that often end up in landfills. Lamber Cavalli believes it's up to shoppers to make the change, "If we’re able to shift our spending habits and de-incentives these companies to produce to produce in mass than the amount we would be able to reduce our carbon footprint by is pretty significant.”

The Closet Trading Company's flagship store is on State street with additional locations in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. The Alpha Resource Center's donation center is located in the La Cumbre Plaza and their stores are in Santa Barbara and Goleta.