Sustainability seems to have become a popular word in the past 10 years. A lot of the public has become aware of how important it is to live a sustainable lifestyle. The state of Kansas has 61 landfills and Missouri uses 106 landfills. That is a whole lot of trash! More and more people are trying to reduce their carbon footprint by minimizing the amount of trash they produce that eventually ends up in a landfill. There are a lot of great ways to accomplish this. Some ways can be quite costly (like buying shoes that are made from coffee grounds or recycled plastic from the ocean) but many other options can be low cost or even free!
One way for us to live sustainably is to buy used goods. By buying a used item you are not only keeping that item out of a landfill but you are also stopping the need for further resources to be utilized to make a new item. We at Adelante Thrift believe in living a sustainable lifestyle. All of the products we have for sale are donated. We even regularly receive brand new items as donations. Although we are not a zero waste company (sometimes we receive donated items that cannot be sold or recycled) we certainly do all we can to run a minimal waste company.
These are our recycling bins that get filled each week.
Many of you know that we remove items from the floor that have not sold after five weeks.
Although those items did not sell after five weeks that does not mean that their journey is over. We do not add these items to the landfill, instead we recycle them. We work in conjunction with another local company that takes all of our recyclable goods. That company will also try to sell the goods at their own locations or they sell the goods to other organizations that recycle the goods. One interesting example is a company that mulches clothing and turns it into home insulation among other items. We love knowing that the items that do not sell from our store still have a use and still have a purpose.
You can live a sustainable life as well by donating your gently used items and by shopping at Adelante Thrift.