Have you taken part in ‘Second Hand September’?

It’s Second Hand September, and Oxfam’s ask is a simple one: for a month, buy second-hand, donate what you’re not wearing, restyle what you’ve got.

And as the research suggests, we’ve got plenty to work with:

• 4 in 10 of us have worn an item of clothing exactly once.
• 32% of British wardrobes went unworn last year.
• 51% of us still regret something we bought in 2025.
• 88 billion single-use bottles. That’s the water behind all those barely-worn clothes.

So what can we do?

Buy used. Vinted’s 2025 impact report puts the average saving at 2.39kg CO2e per item bought second-hand instead of new. Oxfam reckons that if every UK adult bought half their next wardrobe second-hand, we’d avoid 12.5 billion kg of CO2 — a plane going round the world 17,000 times.

One catch, and nobody prints it. That only counts if the second-hand item genuinely replaces something you’d have bought new. If it’s an extra, it isn’t a saving. It’s just more clothes arriving by van.

Vinted’s own figures put that replacement rate at 76%. An independent study they commissioned a few years earlier said nearer 40%. Take your pick — the honest answer depends on you.

Which leaves the unglamorous winner. The greenest jumper in Britain isn’t on Vinted, and it isn’t in a charity shop.

It’s the one already hanging in your wardrobe.

Cost to you: 0p. Cost to the world: 0g CO2e.

Buy less. Wear it longer. And when you do buy — buy used.