Virtue of second hand

Keep Wimberley Beautiful (KWB) provides grants for beautification projects around the City. Where does it get its money? Volunteers from KWB work at the Community Thrift store on River Rd. This thrift store is made up of five different community organizations: Habitat for Humanity, KWB, PAWS, Emily Ann, and Wimberley Players. Volunteers from these organizations record their hours after they work. After the monthly bills are paid by the thrift store, the profits are divided among the organizations in proportion to total hours each organization contributed. Thus, if Habitat for Humanity volunteers contributed 40% of the total work hours, they get 40% of the profit. When you shop at the thrift store you are contributing to the local organizations.

Here is another reason to shop second hand: reducing your environmental footprint. According to a study by the environmental services group Quantis, the clothing and footwear industry is responsible for 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions! Quantis is counting the fuels used to grow and manufacture the clothing, shipping to retail and the consumer, energy to maintain the clothing (washing and drying) and cost of disposing. Oh my!

So what can we do? They suggest in addition to reusing clothes until they decay (men are pretty good at this), that we buy second hand, wash clothes when necessary in cold water (if feasible), and drying clothes in the air (the Texas sun makes this easy) when feasible. A drying rack in the laundry space also helps.

Then to reduce disposal costs, you can donate your gently worn items to second hand stores or organizations.

Incidentally, you do not have to join one of the contributing organizations to volunteer at the Community Thrift Store. You can simply donate your hours to your favorite participating non-profit organization and know that you are contributing in yet another way to our community. The Thrift store near the Community Center supports the Senior Community Center.

We are fortunate to live in such a caring community.

Written by Jackie Mattice, Hays County Master Naturalist