Recycled Tee-shirts With a Story
by Bonnie Alter, London 
on 11.14.08
If you are looking for something cool to wear this autumn and feeling guilty about spending money and buying new; then Re-Shirt is for you. They are vintage, (second-hand as we used to call them) and they come with provenance. Available only on-line, the shirts, in good condition, have been donated to Re-Shirt. The story of each item of clothing, be it boring or interesting, must be included with the donation. Each shirt is then given a registered orange Re-Shirt label and number which is kept on file. So when you buy yours, you know the background of the piece of clothing and you can type in your shirt code and continue the journey by writing your chapter of the life of the shirt.
Clothing is no longer just an anonymous object, instead its story and the experiences associated with it are passed on. The longer the shirt is in circulation, the better its history becomes. And as a donor you get to watch how a personal piece of clothing takes on another life instead of just sitting around in a cupboard, taking up space.
Two Austrians started the company after they learned about the resources needed to make one cotton t-shirt. For example, "Each year more than 20 million tons of cotton are produced. Extremely large amounts of water are used in the cotton production process. On average, 20,000 litres of water are needed to produce 1 kilogram of raw cotton. The extreme amounts of water needed for growing cotton have resulted among other things in the drying up of the Aral Sea, one of the biggest environmental catastrophes of our time." So they came up with the idea for the recycling of existing tee-shirts in order to keep them in circulation and reduce the amount of cotton used.
The stories behind the shirts are fascinating. This one (pictured) is called "Saturday in Tokyo" and here is its story, from Eric in Austria: " I bought this t-shirt on a rainy Saturday morning in Shinyuku, Tokyo. I wanted a piece reminding me of the wonderful moments I had experienced in Japan. But there is another thing: The figure on the t-shirt is a symbol for my own life journey. It´s pretty hard for me to give this piece away. I hope someone will appreciate it." :: Re-Shirt
More on Recycled Clothing
:: Choosing Green Clothing
:: Clothes With a Longer Life
:: She Wore the Same Clothes All Year
:: How to Green Your Wardrobe
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Zero Waste—The Newest Eco-Fashion Innovation?
- Recycled Plastic Workout Gear is Great for Fitness, Great for Planet
- Make Your Own T-Shirt: Empire Waist With A Personal Touch
- Stop Buying Packaged Cereal! 5 Awesome Granola Recipes to Try Instead
- Surf Green with Eco-Friendly Surf Gear
- Got Guts? Stand Up to Summer Heat Without Air Conditioning
These are really cool and it's a fascinating idea, but cost almost $50 to buy and ship to the US. I'll just keep buying my "re-shirts" at my local thrift stores in biking distance. It's a much smaller carbon footprint and nicer on my wallet too.
So I can donate a shirt to them for free and they will sell it for 25 Euros? Wow...
This is disgusting. I really hope you guys learn to be a bit more critical when you cover green businesses because right now you seem to praise anything "green."
I feel like right now I could take a dump, put a stick in it, and sell it as a "re-poop-cycle" for 30 dollars because it's "recycled" and someone from treehugger would write a fantastic review of it.
This idea is a re-poop-cycle and you should be ashamed of yourselves for promoting it. You can get used t-shirts for 1 to 10 dollars at any Goodwill, Value Village or even Buffalo Exchange. And they don't bother printing their logos on the shirts.
Yeah, why not go to a local thrift store? Fly to Japan, buy a Re-shirt, and begin feeling "green"??? Or get them shipped one by one? This does not make sense and does not seem to be eco-sensitive in the light of existing thrift stores everywhere.
Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com