BOZEMAN — It’s no secret that the thrift scene is booming in Bozeman. And as we welcome a new thrift store that opened Thursday morning, we’re also talking about the importance of secondhand shopping and its impact on the environment.

I met Kendra as she was leaving Plato’s Closet. She told me that she often shops at thrift stores, and not just for the cheap name-brand items.

“We can recycle and reuse. Maybe someone doesn’t need it, but maybe it’s really good for me,” she says.

Lillian is another avid saver; in fact, the outfit she wore was entirely from thrift stores. And Lillian tells me she shops thrift stores for a reason, too.

“I feel that second-hand clothing is more environmentally conscious considering how much clothing is produced to meet demand.”

And Lillian is right. According to Earth.org, 100 billion items of clothing are produced each year and 92 million tons of them end up in landfills. And it can take over 200 years for those clothes to decompose, which is why secondhand shopping is so good for the environment.

Joe Morgan is the owner of Plato’s Closet in Bozeman – just one of nearly 30 thrift stores in town. Joe tells me: Shopping at thrift stores?

“It extends the life of the clothes a little bit. It extends the life of the clothes and keeps them from ending up in landfills and the oceans,” he says.

But second-hand shopping is more than just delaying the inevitable. According to an article by Retail Dive, if every consumer bought just one item of clothing second-hand instead of new this year, carbon emissions could be cut by more than £2 billion.

That’s the equivalent of taking 76 million cars off the road for a day and saving 23 billion gallons of water. And if that’s unrealistic, consider that it takes 2,000 gallons of water to make a single pair of jeans.

That’s why, Joe tells me, Plato’s Closet does its best to get clothes off the shelves but keep them out of the landfill, even if the items just don’t sell.

“If we find that a lot of tank tops aren’t selling, we might say, ‘Oh, tank tops are a dollar,’ or offer clearance items up to 90% off. And then when we get to the point where we can’t sell them anymore, we might work with some organizations in the area to see if there are ways to donate the clothes that weren’t purchased to a better cause,” Joe says.

And what about people who are skeptical about buying second-hand? Joe says, “It’s only new once. After you wash it and wear it, it’s used. So it’s no different than just buying other things that someone else has washed and used.”

Lillian says this way of shopping has many advantages.

“Clothes are usually much cheaper than in the big stores and the chances of finding something really nice are pretty good.”

For example, for only $16?

“I just got this. I’m going to be working as a stewardess on a cruise ship soon and I need black pants!”