Sustain Mizzou hosts clothing swap
Members traded clothes and discussed other ways to reuse.
Published Feb. 26, 2010
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Junior Luke Wimmer looks through clothing Wednesday in Chambers Auditorium during a Sustain Mizzou clothing swap. Sustain Mizzou hosted the event to promote reusing items and show different ways one can reuse simple items.
Sustain Mizzou members came together Wednesday for a discussion of the second R of environmental sustainability: re-use. Afterward, they hosted a clothing swap.
The three Rs of sustainability are reduce (consuming less and making things last longer), reuse (making worn things have a new purpose and giving them a new lease on life) and recycle (making sure recyclables end up being recycled).
"Reusing is incredibly important," Sustain Mizzou member Mike Burden said. "The process of reusing is even more important than recycling because it makes us find new value in old things."
Burden brought a Grateful Dead tie, a Minnesota North Stars hockey shirt and a jacket to swap at the event.
"Recycling is important, but reusing items has a greater power to slow the consumption cycle," Burden said. "People should consider a product's life cycle and re-usability every time they make a purchase."
The clothing was divided into two piles by gender, and people were allowed to come up and pick out what they wanted.
Sustain Mizzou member Lisa Tang picked up a blue plaid button down shirt.
"It's a very nice texture, and I liked the pattern," Tang said.
Tang said she plans to cut the shirt up and make it into a better-looking shirt.
The leftover items from the clothing drive will be donated to Goodwill.
For some people at the event, re-using was more than a choice but a lifestyle.
"Re-using is my life," Sustain Mizzou member Ross Obernuefemann said. "I'm a poor college student, and that's how I get shit done."
He took two shirts home; one was a Volcom brand shirt, and the other had a Thunderbird dream catcher design on it.
"It's something exotic and looks really cool," Obernuefemann said.
Obernuefemann said he has used Craigslist to help find things for his house including cars, cell phones, building materials, gardening supplies, goats, bicycles and also a job doing sustainable renovations. He has also managed to patch bike tires without using a patch kit.
The group also discussed other ways to re-use things. It had a brainstorming session and some of the ideas included using plastic bags as garbage bags or insulation, putting a bucket in your shower and watering your garden with the water and turning old tires into planters or sandals.
An upcoming event for Sustain Mizzou is the Local Food for Local People food drive from March 21 to March 27, in which participants buy food from local farmers and give it to the Central Missouri Food Bank.