Did you know that the fashion industry produces about 10 percent of annual global carbon emissions, which is more than all maritime shipping and international flights combined. Worse still, fashion’s emissions of harmful greenhouse gases are projected to grow by more than 50 percent by 2030. Add to that the energy used in washing your clothes and you can see that by making some changes in what you wear and how you care for your clothes can make a big difference in tackling climate change.
Our wardrobe has a terrible impact on the planet, people, and animals living on it. It’s more important now than ever before to take action to reduce waste, pollution, water, and energy consumption.
As consumers, we can start by buying less clothing overall. We can choose higher-quality pieces that last longer. It helps our budget and the planet tremendously.
We can also take better care of the garments we already own, reuse, repair, repurpose, recycle, and upcycle used clothing.
It’s time to change the way we produce and consume clothes with a more sustainable and ethical approach – here’s some ideas.
1. How many T shirts do you really need?
If you’re a fan of TV’s ‘Sort out your life’ you’ll appreciate that typically we have loads of stuff at home that we don’t need and hardly ever use which is adding to clutter. This includes our clothes. The fashion industry has persuaded us that we need to buy new clothes continually, some of which are worn once if at all.
Consider aiming for a ‘capsule wardrobe’ – a harmonious set of a few items that can be easily interchanged to make a variety of outfits. To design a capsule wardrobe, build a selection of outfits around a few items of clothing that you already own. Opt for neutral colours, versatile designs, one-pieces, and sustainable styles that you really love wearing.
Aim to have a cathartic clear out – have a set of bags handy then empty your wardrobes / drawers one at a time, lay out your clothes, identify duplicates, select ones you most wear and place the clothes you’re going to liberate yourself from into the bags to repurpose elsewhere.
Where to take your surplus clothes? Charity shops are an obvious destination or clothes banks at supermarkets but you could also use eBay or Vinted as a way of decluttering and making some money. Women’s refuges need good quality women’s and children’s clothing as do refugee support centres (men’s clothing too).
2. Mend & create
It wasn’t so long ago that repairing clothes was something we all did, when spending a slightly larger proportion of your income on what you wore and taking good care of it was the norm, and being able to sew a button or mend a hem was a basic life skill. Fast fashion lured us into rejecting repairing our clothes when it was cheaper, easier and far more thrilling to buy new.
We’re now embracing more sustainable ways and rediscovering the joys and creativity of mending our clothes to make them last longer.
If you don’t feel confident with a needle, seek out a local Repair Cafe like the one we run at CASaV (Stokesley and Villages Repair Cafe) where enthusiastic volunteer menders will show you how.
If an item is way beyond repair this is a great opportunity to creatively upcycle it into a whole new garment. There’s lots of inspiration online, have a search for ‘upcycled clothing’.
3. Wash and wear
Washing our clothes is another area where we can take climate and environmental action.
Sadly, with each wash, synthetic fabrics shed thousands of plastic particles, leading to broad-scale contamination of waterways. Now it appears we’re drinking that plastic, with a study of tap water in various countries finding 83% of samples were contaminated with plastic fibres.
Doing the laundry has other environmental implications, too, from the water and power used to the harmful substances hidden in common detergents. A more natural approach to laundry is crucial for the health of humans and the planet, so consider our practical steps on how to make the switch.
Up to 25% of each garment’s carbon footprint comes from the way we wash and care for it, and nine out of 10 pieces of clothing end up in landfill long before they should, often because over-washing has caused irreparable colour fading, shrinkage and misshaping.
One easy solution is doing less laundry less often. Obviously, items such as undies and socks need washing after each wear, but clothes that don’t sit directly on our skin – such as jackets, coats and jeans – can be worn five or more times before needing a wash. Laundry detergents, bleaches and softeners need careful selection, too. Many products contain sodium laurel sulphate and optical brighteners, both skin irritants, as well as artificial fragrances, usually derived from petrochemicals – all of which act as toxins once flushed into our waterways. Lots of more eco conscious laundry products are available so just have a look and always read the label!
4. Hire, don’t buy
Wanting a posh frock or suit for a special ‘do’? Often we spend big on an item that we only wear once which is a huge waste of money as well as resources and ultimately climate harmful. With sustainability in mind there has been a recent rise in the hiring or renting clothes market. Again, this is nothing new, it’s something we used to do regularly and then it fell ‘out of fashion’ but now there are many businesses available where you can rent clothes and accessories for a one off special event.
Another area where renting makes eco-sense as well as saving money is reusable nappies. These produce 25% less CO2 than single-use disposable nappies, use 98% less raw materials and have over 90% lower environmental impact during production and disposal. Buying your own can be an expensive outlay initially so nappy libraries to the rescue! A nappy library works just like a regular library, but rather than borrow books, the user can borrow reusable nappies. Locally we have the Hambleton District cloth nappy library, www.hambletonclothnappies.com
5. Buying power
Being sustainable doesn’t mean never buying any new (to you) clothing, there’s many ways of of purchasing that can still fight climate change.
Buying fewer clothes and higher quality is one of the best ways to help the environment. It not only saves resources used in the production of new clothing pieces but also prevents more textile waste from ending up in landfills.
Buying from charity and vintage shops often means that you can get excellent quality, imaginative clothes for a fraction of their original cost. School uniforms are an expensive outlay and children usually grow out of their clothes long before they wear out so most schools now have a second hand uniform and sports gear facility.
When you do want to splash out on something completely new you can still do this sustainably by choosing to spend your hard earned pennies on designed to last and ethically produced clothes made from natural or recycled materials.
CASaV Leaflets
This page is also available as one of a series of CASaV Leaflets, so you can download a printable pdf here – double sided tri-fold leaflet or an editable version which you can make your own and use for your group – OpenOffice document.
Climate Action Stokesley and Villages 