Thrifting: Saving The Earth or Saving The Nation?
Today, with society’s hyperfixation on standing out yet fitting in, the fashion industry plays a significant role. The vogue today is vintage, and this major comeback includes the phenomenon of reworking old pieces, mixing and matching them with contemporary fashion, or merely enjoying the fit itself. Retailers see this as an opportunity for money, marketing fast fashion dupes, and pre-loveds. With Gen Z who treasures staying on trend with affordable clothing, and the market able to meet this demand, is how thrifting has become a remarkable phenomenon.
Fast fashion brands like Zara and Shein are producing chic, trend-driven clothing designs. Their mass production follows the demands of society; even when certain seasons’ stock does not end, they will still manufacture more to feed the fad. They have achieved momentous economic success, but the chain sabotages Earth at a severe stage, with their mass production utilizing environmentally unfriendly materials and waste being thrown into landfills to be incinerated. Several lucky clothing leftovers receive the opportunity to live longer when they are exported elsewhere, though only a small fraction of them is worth selling in the market. Other textiles could be downcycled or recycled into low-quality yarn for insulation, or they could end up in another open-air dump. Fast fashion is a dead-end when it comes to protecting the environment. Hence, another value behind the passion for thrifting is also the encouragement of sustainability. What could have ended up as waste are retracted and offered back to society, because thrifting truly worries about the fact that the US alone throws away 11.3 million tonnes of textile waste, the fashion industry is responsible for 20% of global wastewater, and 10% of microplastics dispersed in the ocean every year comes from textiles (Igini, 2023).
Thrifting’s nature that extends product life spans is what the circular economy (CE) expects to uphold, in contradiction to the traditional linear economy with its “take-make-dispose” approach. Ellen MacArthur (2023) introduced her butterfly diagram of this framework, separating biological and technical aspects into the left and right wings. Technical materials do not safely decompose; thus, they should remain within economic systems through loops of reuse, repair, and recycling, to keep up with biological materials that degrade well. CE advocates that the closer a product stays to its original form, the more economic value is retained. Although recycling is understood as the keyword adjacent to “sustainability”, it is not inherently what the CE proposes; as previously established, textile waste recycling often serves as an end-of-pipe solution. MacArthur stated that a product itself shall contain more value than the raw materials within. Therefore, reusing a product is better than recycling it, and repairing a product is better than destroying it for materials. This is how thrifting fits: it campaigns sustainability through reusing, including reselling, mixing and matching, reworking, etc.
Indonesia, a developing country, is one of the target exports of the thrift sphere dominated by developed countries. For consumers, this is a thrill, but for the government, it is a threat. Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, the current Finance Minister, deployed the policy to tighten the oversight of imported second-hand clothing circulation to protect the domestic textile industry, fearing that MSMEs would struggle to survive due to the outpouring of cheap, illegal goods (DKP UMY, 2025). This is a protectionist approach to economic policies that allows local industries to grow without being overwhelmed by competition from foreign products (Amelia & Purnawarman, 2025). On its implementation, the Minister of Trade Regulation No. 47 of 2025, which explicitly bans imported second-hand clothing. Nevertheless, even after several revisions, it still fails to consider a reality check that thrifting remains a distinguished demand. Thus, the loophole forces the illegal trade of imported second-hand clothing to remain rampant. Protectionism has counterproductive consequences, where affordable imported goods could have higher prices due to the high demand and low supply, and MSMEs that depend on the flow of this trade could suffer financially, leading to further economic inequality (Amelia & Purnawarman, 2025). Hence, authorities seem to have turned a blind eye to the growing thrift phenomenon.
Although the power of consumers does not extend to limiting the clothing production of brands, the bare minimum is to disrupt textiles labelled as “trash,” which would eventually harm the environment. Nonetheless, another issue emerges when the state is not supportive of imported second-hand consumption under the narrative of local industries’ empowerment. Therefore, Yuana et al. (2024) proposed the concept of Mundane Circular Economy Policy (MCEP) that cohesively joins CE principles and everyday practices, because CE should not only be a global norm that pushes for 5R, and thrifting should not only be a trend in society. Protectionism should not merely be a short-term trade defense mechanism, but must shift towards an inclusive development strategy. Domestic policies may transform for the better, but the circular economy essentially argues for sustainability, and it is important to acknowledge that all human and economic activities fundamentally depend on a healthy environment.
References
Amelia, N. A., & Purnawarman, A. (2025). The Impact of the Secondhand Clothing Import Ban Policy on the Trade of Used Garments. Research Horizon, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.54518/rh.5.4.2025.716
DKP UMY. (2025, October 31). The Thrifting Ban Is Considered to Require a Transition Period to Protect MSMEs – UMY. UMY. https://en.umy.ac.id/pelarangan-thrifting-dinilai-perlu-masa-transisi-untuk-lindungi-umkm/
Ellen MacArthur Foundation. (2023). What Is a Circular economy? Ellen MacArthur Foundation. https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/topics/circular-economy-introduction/overview
Igini, M. (2023, August 21). 10 concerning Fast Fashion Waste Statistics. Earth.org. https://earth.org/statistics-about-fast-fashion-waste/
Indonesia. (2025). Peraturan Menteri Perdagangan Nomor 47 Tahun 2025 tentang Barang yang Dilarang untuk Diimpor. Jakarta: Kementerian Perdagangan.
Yuana, S. L., et al. (2024). Mundane circular economy policy: Mainstreaming CE education through the agency of schools. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140847–140847. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.140847=
