Good-quality fashionable clothing can be sourced for free in Benalla — if you know where to look.
One such place was the CWA hall on Wednesday, June 28, which hosted the Rose City’s first clothes swap meet.
The event, much like any Parisian or Milanese fashion show, featured live music and nibblies — not to mention hundreds of garments you can’t buy in any old High St store.
Facilitated by A Fitting Connection, in partnership with Benalla Rural City Council, the clothing swap meet saw as many smiles from those finding that perfect outfit as it did from those happy to see their donations getting a second lease of life.
Katrina Naish of A Fitting Connection said the event coincided with new clothing bins being installed at the Benalla Resource Recovery Centre — also known as the tip.
“We’re educating the community on purposeful textile ownership and disposal. And that covers a lot of things,” Ms Naish said.
“Our main vehicle for doing that is our workshops and this is an additional service we offer, clothes swapping.
“We’re supporting council in running this for the very first time.
“Only one to two per cent of textiles are currently being recycled in Australia.
“And now a lot of overseas countries are not accepting (the volume of) textiles they were in previous years.
“In Australia we’re not recycling anywhere near as much as we should.
“In many cases it’s because it’s too hard, so people will just dump old clothes in the bin.
“We have kerbside recycling for cardboard, paper, glass etc, but what can we do with textiles?
“We take clothes to the op-shop, who reject a lot of donations for good reasons. They are set up to support a charity and to raise funds.”
The reality is op-shops don’t have the resources to also upcycle, recycle and repair clothing.
Ms Naish said a company that does is Upcycle4Better.
“We partnered with Upcycle4Better, after doing some research,” she said.
“For me they’re the best (textile) recycling company. They want to value the textiles for as long as possible.
“For example they will repair clothes — no other textile recycling company does this.
“It’s not uncommon for pants or a dress to have a broken zip. So Upcycle4Better will simply replace the zip and (the garment) can then be re-sold.
“It has around 500 channels for how and where it can recycle fabric.
“Only about four per cent of what it gets cannot be recycled and those are burned in a special way to become ash that is used on roads.”
Everything that goes into an Upcycle4Better clothing bin will be used in one way or another. None of it will end up in landfill.
The clothing swap meet had help from some of Benalla’s youngest volunteers, the Full Impact Squad, whose members were on hand to explain how the event worked and to greet those who attended.
The youth group, facilitated by Tomorrow Today, has been doing great things in the Rose City, including cleaning up the lakeside area and raising funds to help repair the roof of the Uniting church.
Benalla Rural City Mayor Bernie Hearn said it was great to see so many people participating in this exciting and eco-friendly fashion experience.
“Everyone walked away with something nice and there was such a great response from those who attended,” Cr Hearn said.
If you have any unwanted clothing that would not be suitable for one of Benalla’s op-shops you can take them to tip, which is open every day from noon to 3.45pm.