NU Thrift Store promotes affordability and sustainability
Third-year Mel Katz, co-founder of NU Thrift Store (NUTS), cleans up after the third and final day of the NUTS run this fall quarter. Photo by Olivia Lloyd / In Our Nature
Tucked into the Arch Room on the second floor of Norris, the NU Thrift Store, or NUTS for short, worked for three days to bring affordable and reused clothing to Northwestern students and faculty.
Third-year Mel Katz and second-year Sam Liu co-founded NUTS “as a way to combat waste and promote better usage of clothes that people no longer need,” according to Liu.
The two students held the first pop-up thrift store last spring, making their three-day run this fall their second session. Ultimately, they hope to open a permanent thrift store on campus operated by students and for students.
“Our two main goals are essentially promoting sustainability and also helping out first-gen, low-income students,” Katz said. “Because of that, we partnered with Quest the last time we did this in the spring, which is a first-gen, low-income student group on campus. And this fall, we're partnering with Fossil Free NU.”
Katz and Liu, along with 13 volunteers, sold or swapped 300 items, each priced at $2 from this session of NUTS. The proceeds will go to Fossil Free Northwestern, a campus organization calling for Northwestern to divest from fossil fuel companies.
Although the store had a range of items, Katz said they priced each item at $2 in order to make the store accessible for all students. Further, students who donated up to three items to the store could swap those out for new items – or rather, new secondhand items.
Part of the two students’ inspiration for opening NUTS involved awareness of the environmental consequences of the fashion industry. In 2017, Americans generated 12.8 million tons of clothing and footwear waste, nearly 70% of which ended up in landfills, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Thrifting is on the rise in the U.S. and has driven the creation of secondhand brands, even as the retail industry worries about shuttering its brick-and-mortar stores. According to ThredUp, an online reused-items store, “Not surprisingly, the younger generations are leading this charge, with millennials and Gen Z adopting secondhand 2.5x faster than other age groups.”
ThredUp’s resale report predicts that the secondhand apparel industry will overtake the fast fashion industry in the next decade. Fast fashion refers to the rotating line of apparel that quickly makes its way from the runway to less expensive mass market stores then ultimately to landfills.
“Being able to reuse an item instead of buying an entirely new thing is the most sustainable thing you can do when it comes to fashion because of how resource-intensive is to make a new clothing item,” Liu said. She began thrifting for affordability and has continued for environmental reasons.
Katz and Liu are working on writing a proposal to obtain a year-round space for the thrift store, which will fulfill their dual goals of being financially accessible for the NU community as well as diverting items from landfills.
“I think that more people should thrift,” Liu said. “Just buy things second hand. You don't need a new thing. You think you do, but you don't.”
The thrift store’s proceeds will go to Fossil Free Northwestern, a campus organization calling for Northwestern to divest from fossil fuel companies. Photo by Olivia Lloyd / In Our Nature