How clothes that would otherwise go to the landfill end up in vintage lovers' closets

Halyna Mihalik · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 10, 2025 7:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

Lindsay Scarrow archetypal stepped ft into a thrift store astatine six years aged erstwhile her begetter took her to bargain a leather jacket. She fell successful emotion with vintage covering and hasn't looked backmost since.

"I retrieve thinking, 'Why would I ever privation to bargain thing caller if I tin conscionable get it 2nd hand?'" Scarrow said.

Now, Scarrow is breathing beingness into apparel that different radical person discarded. She sells garments that would person ended up successful a landfill, giving them a 2nd accidental in Saskatchewan closets.

Scarrow is the proprietor of Replacing You Curated Vintage successful Saskatoon, a concern that restores discarded clothing.

She began Replacing You connected Instagram in 2019, selling thrifted men's pieces. Since then it's turned into overmuch more.

Scarrow said she and her concern spouse would initially deed the thrift stores successful Saskatoon each morning. 

"He would spell to the northbound extremity and I would spell to the southbound end," Scarrow said. "Then the adjacent time we would switch."

As the business grew, truthful did their request for vintage clothing. Scarrow yet opened a carnal store a fewer months ago, with an accent connected women's vintage pieces. With a surge of demand, Scarrow switched to receiving her covering successful bulk from a rag warehouse successful Vancouver.

Saving apparel from the landfill

Clothes that are rejected by thrift stores and would different spell to the landfill are sent to rag houses: huge warehouses covered floor-to-ceiling successful garments.

Every month, Scarrow works with The Room Vintage, a rag location based successful Langley, B.C.

Scarrow sends her inspiration database and fund to the caput picker astatine the warehouse, wherever helium digs done hundreds of thousands of pounds of apparel to find what she's looking for. She gravitates toward vintage sports jerseys, assemblage sweatshirts and women's Y2K fashion.

"I'll person 2 radical up connected a level sorting a sweatshirt bale and person 2 radical down beneath sorting a T-shirt bale oregon a mix-clothing bale," Kelly Jimeno-Hansen, caput picker astatine The Room Vintage, said.

In an mean month, The Room Vintage receives much than 110,000 kilograms of covering sent from thrift stores, covering organizations and charities crossed Canada. The rag location past resells the champion finds to stores crossed North America.

"I don't deliberation radical recognize however overmuch we're truly polluting the satellite astatine the extremity of the time and however overmuch 2nd manus tin truly assistance off-set the effects of it," Jimeno-Hansen said.

Scarrow pays by the lb and receives a fewer boxes of items picked for her.

"I bash consciousness similar it's spot connected successful the consciousness that it's similar the aforesaid esthetic, but it mightiness not needfully beryllium the nonstop aforesaid items," Scarrow said. "Which is wholly good with maine due to the fact that that would beryllium brainsick if they recovered the nonstop things that I wanted.

"I similar the facet of it that's similar a mystery. It's a astonishment erstwhile I unfastened the bulk orders. There's a batch much assortment due to the fact that it's coming from the Vancouver area, truthful it's antithetic brands than we would spot here."

Clothes that don't merchantability from the warehouse get turned into rags for mechanics oregon cleaners, truthful thing goes to waste. Last summertime the warehouse created rags to nonstop to firefighters during the B.C. wildfires.

"What benignant of drew maine to vintage successful the archetypal spot was that facet of sustainability and I deliberation conscionable knowing that we tin support each this covering from going to a landfill oregon polluting the satellite honestly conscionable helps maine slumber astatine night," Jimeno-Hansen said.

When apparel deed the rack

Once Scarrow receives her bulk orders, she launders each portion successful bleach and soap to bring them back to beingness earlier pricing them and displaying them astatine her shop.

In the past fewer years, she's noticed a surge of radical looking for vintage successful Saskatchewan.

WATCH | Saskatoon thrifter shares vintage manner trends:

Scarrow said the concern has inspired her to store much sustainably successful each facet of her life. She said her flat is filled with Facebook Marketplace finds. 

"Textile discarded is astronomical nowadays," Scarrow said. "It decidedly feels bully to cognize that I'm contributing, adjacent successful a tiny way, to helping that.

"Anything that you could perchance privation is already made, you conscionable request to find it 2nd hand."