Don’t Recycle – Teecycle!

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TeeCycle.org – Recycle Your Tees!

If you’ve read my post Fair Trade Eco T-Shirts – A Designer’s Dilemma you’ll already know my opinions on the terrible reputation of the t-shirt trade be it ecology or worker’s rights, (as a point of interest, Andy Lunt of T-Shirt & Sons never did get back to my email. Not surprising really, by using Spreadshirt and other services I am helping pollute the planet. Andy should give us the option to do better I say).

In the meantime, whilst you and I try and work out how to save the world, Tim Cigelske of TeeCycle.org told me all about his vision, and if you believe in Karma this is as ethical as you can get. The store is an online blog, the t-shirts are recycled, there’s no production, no printing, just Tim and his wife scour the local rummage sales, thrift stores (in the UK that’d be boot fairs and junk and charity shops), and save abandoned classics from reaching the landfill. They go further than that, they donate $1 from every sale towards the River Revitalization Foundation project which is dedicated to restoring urban river trails and waterways in the Milwaukee area. Now that’s great Karma!

TeeCycle.org is more than a store, it’s a political philosophy. Imagine if at least one person in your local neighbourhood, and every other too, had such conscientious people recycling everything under the sun. We’d throwaway less, we’d pollute less, we’d pay less, and everyone would look like a retro style guru. Sounds like heaven to me.

The blog has only been running a few months and yet it’s obviously becoming a favourite hangout for lots of retro t-shirt aficionados. They have a savvy market, these people know that if they were buying any of their classic tees from a trendy retro store in the city, they’d be paying up to ten times the price (depending on rarity and cult status). I’ve seen some absolutely brilliant old school tees at TeeCycle, Tim and his wife plus their friends model all of them, here are some of my faves:-

Monkey T-Shirt of mysterious origins.	Pixies Tour T-Shirt His and Hers available.
Old School Homer T-Shirt	Athletics T-Shirt

I’m Cute Minnie Mouse Tee	Miller High Life T-Shirt (sold).
Horn of Plenty T-Shirt (lol!).	Mellow Mushroom Pizza T-Shirt (Sold).

I absolutely adore the Mellow Mushroom Pizza T-Shirt – looks like something Grateful Dead would have sold in the 1970s, sadly it’s sold, actually almost all of these will be by the time you get there, they do sell fast. TeeCycle.org reminds me of those Saturday mornings I spent (back in the day) in Camden and Soho flicking through used record shops searching for rare classic vinyl. (BTW Tim if you get anymore Mellow Mushrooms in medium put one to the side for me . Horn of Plenty is hilarious for obvious reasons, love the font underneath Homer in Old School same goes for Athletics. Tim could never work out what on earth Monkey is about – you can read about his “research” here

Here’s the latest classic t-shirt on offer today (Saturday 4th May 2008), Tim’s just posted it at TeeCycle.org. A Clockwork Orange T-Shirt for $7! I couldn’t resist it, in fact I’ve just ordered 3 from TeeCycle lol! You know there are bloggers out there getting paid squillions for blogging and here I am splurging on more t-shirts lol – ah well there’s more to life than money – there’s blogging for a start, and t-shirts of course – heh. I don’t normally buy out of the blue, I wear my stuff to death, I am real stingy but I just couldn’t help it this time. TeeCycle is on to a winner there, and it’s just such good Karma you can’t not buy something from them.

What’s more Tim has made a concerted effort to keep his prices at rock-bottom, he and his wife aren’t after making profits, they simply want to give back to their environment and their community. An inspiring blog for every t-shirt fan to consider. I’m sure some of these t-shirts are selling on Ebay for at least quadruple the prices Tim is charging. His shirts are just $7 each, YES $7 each! He only charges $3 shipping in the U.S,t’s all set. International shipping is $6 for the first one, $10 if you buy two and $12 for three or anything more. For domestic it’s $3 each with a maximum of $9 per order.

If you’re in the Milwaukee area why not consider sending them your own used t-shirts (make sure you thought they were cool at some point in your life – no blanks – nothing damaged – just cool tees you’ve grown out of mentally, culturally, physically, whatever the reason), contact Tim and tell him what tees you have! Hey it’s for charity, you’ve probably got loads of tee shirts you don’t wear anymore. I had a charity leaflet through the door the other day asking for used clothes, but it turned out it was a scam, just a bunch of Ebayers on the make featured on BBC TV’s Watchdog a few days later – ha ha. Here’s some advice for anyone who doesn’t care about the environment, before this world ends you may still want to earn a few more bucks, so here’s how…

Buy a shed load of tees from TeeCycle.org and put them on Ebay, describe them as rare, retro, classic, old school and at the very least triple the prices you’re paying Tim, and I bet you will still sell, sell, sell. For those who do care you can be satisfied with the fact you are reducing your carbon footprint, saving a little cash (which is a must in these economically turbulent times), and getting yourself a top quality t-shirt that someone probably paid 5 or 6 times as much for, when it was new!

So what’s stopping you, you can help the environment, get yourself a crazy tee or two (or three like me lol) and impress your friends and strangers with your wildly eclectic funky retro collection of tees. I know I will/am/already have

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