Check out thredUP.com for a way to green your Black Friday

In my post, Top 10 Ways to Go Green on Black Friday, I shared a few simple ways that you can make your chaotic “day after Thanksgiving” shopping experience a green one. Well, there’s a great new company based out of Boston that can bring the Black Friday shopping experience directly to you in an envelope, and that means that you won’t have to worry about creating any fuel emissions to drive to a store.

It also means that as long as you have some cool clothes that you’re willing to exchange, you’ll be getting some stylish threads back in return.

thredUP is a Boston-based clothing exchange company that was created by, get this, three GUYS. Yes ladies, there are men out there who actually do care about bargain shopping! Co-founders James Reinhart, Oliver Lubin and Chris Homer wanted to design an eco-friendly shopping experience where people could exchange stylish, brand-name clothing with each other at an affordable price. They also wanted to debunk the myth that you have to spend a ton of money on days like Black Friday in order to get a good shopping deal.

That’s why they created threadUP. You can get the ultimate shopping experience without going anywhere or spending virtually anything!

When you Sign Up to join the thredUP community, you get to recycle your clothes for absolutely free.  Yes, I did say free!  The only thing you pay for are the prepaid envelopes that you get the clothes shipped in. In fact, thredUP is having a GREENFRIDAY promotion up through this Black Friday, November 27 until midnight, where you can get 3 envelopes for $5 instead of the original price of 3 for $25.

So, how does the whole process work? In just 3 easy steps you:

1. Fill out a survey to tell thredUp the brand, size and types of clothing that you’re donating, as well as the same for what you’re looking for.
2. Let the thredUP team search through other member listings and send you survey matches that you might be interested in.
3. Order a prepaid envelope to send and receive items.

Talk about a great way to recycle clothes! The best part about the process (besides the fact that it’s affordable for anyone) is that you get to manage your own “virtual closet” to keep track of all of your swaps. Here’s what it looks like:

If you’re still not impressed by the whole thredUp idea, and that it’s a great alternative to in-store shopping on Black Friday, then you should at least support the people behind it. Here’s what the 3 co-founders say about themselves on the company’s About Us page:

“We started thredUP mainly because as football loving, bike riding, beer drinking men we couldn’t be caught dead at a clothing swap (and what woman doesn't love to talk clothes - talk about a great conversation starter...).” That sentence alone won my support for thredUP. Three honest guys starting a clothes connection that could eventually lead to a love connection. Very cool.

Thank you to Aaron Cohen from thredUP for sharing your website with Greenopolis!