The world is waking up: concern about the environmental and ethical costs of the consumer goods industry worldwide, the need to recycle and reuse, and the impact of dealing with waste are common threads across many conversations.
Buying second-hand isn’t the same as protesting on the streets, but it’s a demonstration none the less. As much as saving money, buying second-hand is also about rejecting excessive consumerism. We wouldn’t have to make so much stuff if old stuff if we reused and recycled. We wouldn’t have to burn so much carbon producing it. There would be less need to dig out so many resources, or turn a blind eye to worker’s rights in other parts of the world to keep the prices low. There would be less need to ship and pack things, less worry about the impact of all this new stuff. It would just be better if we could embrace older stuff and recycle it when it still has life in it.
Second-hand retail has grown in recent years. In the United Kingdom (UK), there are 3,943 stores specialising in selling second-hand goods. Plus, it’s an industry employing 36,000 people. During 2019, sales in these stores saw a 17.6 percent rise in value, a notably large increase on the past two years. Statista.com
More people are switching on to second-hand, and more are seeing it as a badge of honour. With Rumage.com we are making second-hand easy by bringing all the market places under one roof. It’s a simple plan, if we make it easy more people will do it, if we show second-hand is a positive choice, more people will step up.
Currently there are 16 sites linked to Rumage.com and we are busy making new connections. GoRumage!