The birth of Recyclababy

 As a mum of two young boys (now three!), I was looking for an outlet in amongst the mayhem at home. One inevitable part of motherhood is a mountain load of washing and I was quickly noticing that my son’s clothing was only being washed a handful of times before they were getting bagged up and put away.

He went through six different sizes of clothing in one short year and I figured there had to be a better way to do this. I started reading up on fast fashion and the impact it has on our environment, but the focus really was on adult clothing. What about the babies and their clothing turnover?!

In between a pile of gifts and the excitement that comes with buying clothing for your impending arrival, the waste of it all is astounding. Recyclababy was born to help encourage new mums to buy quality, pre-loved goods at the click of a few buttons, so we can continue to work towards a more sustainable future.

I started off holding monthly pop-ups from my garage selling pre-loved baby items. It had always been in the back of my mind to start selling online eventually, but I felt that time was against me. In the end I decided I should go online so I could reach more mums. But I must admit, a global pandemic was needed to push me into it!

It's pretty clear that in the last couple of decades, our shift towards fast-fashion is wearing out the planet and this has to change. There are so many garments going in to landfill for a number of reasons and it really shouldn’t be that way. In Australia, approximately 6,000kg of clothing gets thrown out every 10 mintues!!

Every item sold on this website is pre-loved (with the exception of a few new items looking for love), and they are all in great used condition.

If I can let you in on a little secret…there’s so much garment-gold out there waiting to be found, and all it takes is just changing your focus to choosing pre-loved. Recyclababy was started to encourage a bigger paradigm shift towards buying second-hand for children. Once I changed my own outlook, I couldn’t believe how mistaken I was always buying new. Now, I find myself choosing second-hand first, and I love it! Not only do my boys wear pre-loved, but I do too, as does my husband! My bank balance doesn’t mind either.

If I can change one mum’s decision to shop pre-loved versus strolling in to a large department store, then I’m happy. Because I’m hoping that there’s a bigger change coming.