How to host different types of clothes swaps for friends and communities

In this very strange era where clothes are cheaper than chips and perceived as disposable, it’s a real shame that so many amazing, reusable items end up in landfill. Globally, a little under a hundred billion garments end up in landfill each year. In Australia alone, that figure is over 200,000,000 kg a year.

If you’re someone who loves good style but hates fashion waste, clothes swapping might be the answer to ending this conveyor belt of waste to landfill.

 At a clothes swap, attendees bring their quality unwanted garments and accessories to swap with other people’s valued, quality items.

Why swaps are so much fun? Whether you’re swapping with a few friends at home, or with a big group of strangers bonding over your mutual love for style and waste reduction, you’ll likely walk away with a big smile on your face. Here’s why:

• you meet lots of cool, like-minded people  

• swaps reduce clothing waste to landfill by keeping clothes in circularity for longer

• swaps reduce carbon emissions, energy and virgin resource use

• they’re a free (or low cost) way to give your wardrobe a refresh and new look

• an easy way for your community, organisation, friends or neighbourhood to fight waste.

 Need an additional reason? How about using the swap idea as an excuse for a party?!

 Here are ideas to help you get your swap game going:

Have a film screening

ABC TV’s environmental tv series War On Waste is an entertaining and informative docuseries that complements a swap perfectly. Have a few friends over at your place for a screening night with a clothes swap on the side. You can also screen other documentaries and films that fuel your passion for sustainable action. A clothes rack or table where people can hang or place their swap items is sufficient. Bonus points if there's drinks and food!  

Photo by Joseph Pearson on Unsplash

Neighbourhood & community swap party

Now this is a real party. Organise a clothes swap in your neighbourhood with neighbours or community with members. It can literally be on the street (with required permits), in front of several houses or even a community hall. At these community swaps, new friendships are formed, communities are built and grow stronger. It brings people together and inspires conversations on ways that people in the local community can collectively take action such as swapping other household items to reduce waste, community gardening and composting for instance.

Food always makes events more exciting so you can also make it a barbeque or food potluck clothes swap! Some music and entertainment are options that work beautifully in these scenarios. If you need guidance on hosting a swap, you can find resources here to support you through the process.

All-day drop in clothes swap

These swaps are so convenient for people to drop in when it suits them. The swap can run for several hours or all day. It’s necessary to have some swap clothes ready ahead of time so that the first groups of swappers to arrive have more options of clothing to swap. You can put a call out for clothing donations beforehand that you’ll use on the day to get your swap started.

Be a swap supplier (for councils, organisations, schools and businesses)

The idea here is to be an organisation that enables your community in the war on fashion waste and supports a circular economy. If you’re a council, organisation or even a business with a hall, room or space, perhaps you can let individuals and community groups use the space for free for swap events. You can also provide clothes racks, hangers and mirrors to encourage and make it easier for people to run swap events on a regular basis, all year round perhaps.

General clothes swap event

This is where you host a general clothes swap that’s not designed for a specific community, group or neighbourhood so that anyone, from anywhere can join in the fun. You might promote and advertise your swap online and through other channels so that people can find out about it. This is a great way to convene with sustainability-loving fashionistas. It’s the kind of swap that can attract a few more trendy fashion pieces than your average swap. Here’s a free ‘how to host a clothes swap’ resources toolkit to make it easier to host your swaps.  

Themed swaps

Holiday events and occasions are often celebrated with disposable material stuff, food waste or excessive plastic that quickly becomes waste. In some cases, all of the above. It's time we shifted this environmentally-damaging waste culture by celebrating our occasions in more sustainable ways like swapping.

You can theme your swaps as birthday swaps, picnic swaps, Mother’s Day swaps, Earth Day swaps, Valentine’s Day swaps, swaps for larger sizes only, International Women’s Day swaps, swaps for clothing designed for men, swaps for bridal hens’ nights, swaps for formal wear, etc. Theme ideas are endless!

* If you’re hosting a non-commercial swap in Australia in August or September 2023, register your swap here. It will be uploaded to the ABC War On Fashion Waste page for people to know your swap is happening. If your swap is small, you can still register it because it will inspire others to join the swap revolution!

A different kind of Christmas

I chuckled when I found this Grinch t-shirt at a clothes swap a couple of years ago. 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' is a culturally iconic story and popular children’s book I read as a kid. In the 2000 film adaptation with Jim Carrey, the Grinch’s home was bombarded with trash from the townspeople’s Christmas celebrations. For this and other reasons, the Grinch hated Christmas. So, he tried to stop the holiday by stealing people’s Christmas presents from their homes while they slept.  

I've never been a fan of the superfluous nature of the festive holiday period with its excessive overconsumption rituals that seem to get worse every year. Christmas has been reduced to the notion of excessive material consumption, excessive food waste, excessive packaging, decorations and presents that people don't need or probably don't even want. Most of it ends up in landfill. Australians for instance wasted an estimated $400 million on unwanted presents last Christmas! Some environmentalists even say that Christmas is the world’s greatest annual environmental disaster. Americans throw away 25% more trash during the holiday season, amounting to 25 million tons of garbage which is about 1 million extra tons per week based on data from Stanford University. And according to the OECD, about 54 million plates of food are thrown out in the UK every Christmas. Food waste and its supply chain is a major source of CO2 emissions. The IPCC report on Climate Change and Land stated that wasted and lost food is responsible for up to 10% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. This might be why my Grinch t-shirt resonates. The Grinch is in this way symbolic of disrupting the holiday overconsumption culture.   

It feels like the beautiful things about the holidays like family, culture, connection, community and the opportunity for rest and reflection have been corrupted. Now it’s all about consumerism and directing our efforts towards skyrocketing profits for big corporations. So, what if we redirected all of these resources towards making life liveable for people who are underprivileged or marginalised? What if, instead of going along with the old tradition of giving presents to someone who doesn't really need it, maybe the cost or the item/service can be donated to the people or organisations that work towards environmental regeneration?

I think the moral of the Grinch story was that after lamenting on the stolen presents, the townspeople realised they could have a happy Christmas without the excessive material stuff. We too can create a different kind of Christmas. During the super consumption period that goes from Black Friday through to the holidays and into the January sales, we buy and consume a lot of stuff in richer countries. It’s a good opportunity for low-income earners to afford necessary items and luxurious treats. It’s also a time to shift this modern trend of THE NEED TO BUY things we don’t need. We spend a big portion of our lives shopping and spending. This isn’t necessarily about being frugal. This is about filling our lives with purposeful activities that have a more lasting impact on our souls than just inanimate objects we pay for.

The holidays carry a different meaning for everyone, but I hope the end of this year is a time of positive introspection for all of us. A time we use wisely to do some self-love and self-care by alchemising the things within us that keep us from evolving to our highest selves. And shifting habits like unnecessary consumption that damage ecosystems and hurt the environment. And by doing random things like showing bundles of love and acts of kindness to the people that would never expect it from us both online and in-person.

The holidays done differently

If we choose to resist the status quo and #MakeChristmasGreatAgain, here are a few tips:

Personalise the holidays. It’s important to recognise that we don’t have to stick to doing the same thing we’ve been doing for decades or centuries. We can make brand new holiday traditions that hold personal meaning for you, family and friends. Ones that don’t have to rely on excessive use of things or products to make the holidays fun.

Giving – Have you noticed that people who have a lot, get given a lot too? Consider giving to people who really, actually need resources and things for their survival and personal growth. This is one way to tip the scales towards more balance and equality in society. Seek out people in need within your local community or even in parts of the global South to give to. Giving need not be something limited to the holidays. It can be all year round.

Quit holiday sales – Reducing overconsumption is about finding alternative habits to replace excessive shopping. Buy what you need, reuse, recycle and repair when you can. Place a higher value on experiences over things.

Photos by Madé Kosala

♥ Nina Gbor

Instagram: @eco.styles