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Thrift stores already exist, both brick-and-mortar, and online. I use them, but they're a small piece (12.3%) of the overall clothing market, presumably because most Americans prefer the convenience of finding exactly what they want - new - or they dislike the idea of wearing used clothes.

The Loooop machine feels like a greenwashing gimmick. Doing any work in the US must be more expensive than the total cash (not environmental) cost of manufacturing and shipping a new clothing item from Bangladesh or Viet Nam.

I mean, you could probably build a small business and fund it through a big retailer's philanthropy budget; that's not a bad idea. But I can't see any way to do it at meaningful (environment-changing) scale.

The most effective environmental strategy would be to have the Kardashians (or whoever) pivot to only shopping at Goodwill and tweeting about it. But that's not going to happen.



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