Dumpster diving is a way to save perfectly good items from landfills, but when an Instagram user recently came across an unimaginably flagrant amount of waste, they didn't let it slide.
Backslide Vintage (@backslidevintage) is a Nashville-based resale boutique in the business of ensuring useful items have a chance at a second life.
The shop's Instagram account tends to feature cool, one-of-a-kind finds, but recently, they shared a Reel documenting something decidedly uncool — two entire dumpsters full of perfectly good clothing.
"Hey @roundtablemanagement, this is extremely disappointing. There are many options besides dumping 100s if not 1000s of brand new sweaters and tees in dumpsters," a lengthy caption began, tagging the alleged culprit.
The party mentioned was another Nashville-based business, an agency that represents musicians — and, it would appear, handles their merch.
As the caption continued, Backslide Vintage cited some startling statistics about fabric in landfills in the United States and around the world.
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They indicated a staggering 92 million tons of textile waste is produced annually on a global scale, a figure the United Nations Environment Programme referenced in March. They further claimed 11.3 tons of that is from the U.S., a number provided by the Environmental Protection Agency for 2018.
Unsurprisingly, commenters were horrified by the footage.
"I owned a merch company in Nashville for over 10 years and we NEVER disposed of items like this. We always donated," one replied.
"Ugh, it's Comfort Colors, too, the most comfy shirts/sweaters. Those would have [been] such a great thing to donate," another observed.
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Heck yes 👍 "Big yikes!!! The amount of unhoused families that could use brand new clothing items in the city limits alone … I know I'm not seeing Comfort Color tags," a third lamented.
Comments largely focused on the fact that the clothing was of decent quality, brand-new, and could have been donated to Nashville residents in need.
Although retailers can be averse to donating unused goods, some businesses have done the right thing when faced with unexpected waste.
Food is trickier to salvage than clothing, but a Kroger and a Trader Joe's managed to offload perishables when a power outage would have created significant food waste.
At an individual level, donating your clothes not only reduces textile waste, but it's also a win-win if you're looking to declutter your home. And as Backslide Vintage noted, waste is often avoidable.
"This is inexcusable, wasteful and simply lazy," they chided.
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