ARCHIVES

ARCHIVES

Cycle of Life: Giving used clothes a second life — Green is gold at Santa Maria’s VTC

By Bettina Adragna/Staff Writer

Three years ago, when Julie Posada started working as director of production for the VTC Foundation Thrift Store, the store generated 30 Dumpsters’ worth of landfill waste a week.

Now, the store’s trash bin takes out five loads a week.

Not only do the eco-friendly tactics reduce disposal fees, gas and labor costs for the nonprofit, they translate into serious savings for VTC shoppers like Leslie Ruvalcaba, a homemaker from Santa Maria.

Ruvalcaba visited the store for the first time June 19 with her mother-in-law, Socorro Rocha, and liked the vintage items, purses and shoes.

“They always say that one man’s trash is another’s treasure,” Ruvalcaba said.

Although Posada began working on making the store more eco-friendly three years ago, the effort accelerated when the store moved to its new location at 529 S. Blosser Road on March 1, allowing for more space to store donated items.

The Blosser Road store is also closer to the A Street facility, where the clothing is sorted and hung by a group of eight adults who have developmental disabilities.

More room is now available to recycle electronics, which is done through CEC Electronic Waste Recycling in Arroyo Grande. The thrift store serves as a drop-off location for unusable televisions or computers, for example.

Two large recycling bins take in the cardboard that tends to come in the form of donation boxes. The old location didn’t have room for the additional bins.

Posada said many thrift stores have to throw away a lot of donated items because they don’t sell after a certain period of time, and the store needs to rotate items to keep the inventory fresh.

Instead of doing that, the VTC Foundation store steeply discounts items so they become incredibly attractive for deal-hunters, who scoop them up.

“Our goal is to keep the prices low so the items keep turning over,” Posada said.

In addition, they hand out coupons for 20 percent to 40 percent off on Saturdays and Sundays, to allow shoppers to get discounts on the items they really want.

Coffee tables can sell for as little as 93 cents. Couches have been sold for as little as $4. Clothing sells at 10 items for $10 every Tuesday, and $2 to $4 at regular price.

The clothing left over from Tuesday’s sale is given on Wednesday to Textile Waste Solutions in Santa Maria, a local company that partners with the city of Santa Maria to take clothing from thrift stores throughout the city.

That company ships clothing made of lighter fabrics to various countries in Africa, or recycles the clothing into rags, which are sold to painters and carpenters.

Fabrics too heavy for Africa’s hot weather, such as acrylics and wool, are made into carpet foundation or insulation for cars.

Another expense that was eliminated was tagging items with their prices. Now items are priced by type and organized into their own areas.

The store’s shelves are full of books that sell at three for $1. Unpurchased books go to the Kiwanis and Altrusa clubs’ literacy programs.

The store doesn’t have room for large appliances such as washers and dryers, but those can sometimes be passed on to a local resident who distributes them to people in need. “We’ve even been known to call other thrift stores who will take the items,” Posada said.

Office furniture can sometimes be used by the main VTC office on A Street.

A crew of three adults with disabilities works at the store daily, as well as some of the employees from the thrift store’s former location at Broadway and Donovan Road. High school students and other community members volunteer, as well.

The thrift store is one of the few that still does home pickups for donations. A truck goes out to Santa Maria and Orcutt on Tuesdays, to Lompoc on Tuesdays, to Nipomo and Arroyo Grande on Wednesdays, and to the Santa Ynez area on Thursdays. Walk-in donations are also accepted.

Suzanne Malengo, a registered nurse from Santa Maria, has shopped at the foundation’s store for three years, starting at the old location. “I just like coming in to get bargains,” Malengo said. “The price is a nice thing … (and) they’re one-of-a-kind things.”

To Posada, the effort to go green was a cost-saver, as well as a conscience-booster.

“A thrift store truly is the ideal recycling,” Posada said. “That’s what it’s all about, is you’re taking old items and recycling them.”

badgragna@theadobepress.com