Start Your Revolution!

Dear reader,
I saw this really interesting article on the environmental impact of back-to-school clothing shopping a few days ago, and it inspired me to discuss the importnance of green clothing shopping:

According to a National Retail Federation/BIGresearch survey, back-to-school spending this year is expected to reach $18.4 billion.

Why is this? How can we waste so much money on clothing? “Fast Fashion” [the act of changing what is "trendy" as much as possible] is at an all-time high, leading to even more short-term clothing wear. This leads to the mindset that clothing is disposable; just because a shirt is only ten dollars doesn’t mean it should be bought and worn once.

Clothing takes energy to manufacture and transport; when we assume that it is disposable, we disregard the environmental impact of our consumerism.

Clothing’s environmental impact is titanic; even in the growth of cotton we see problems. Petrochemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides are used to “protect” and “nurture” cotton; these fertilizers are the main source of CO2 in agriculture. The travel of textiles and clothing across the globe also makes the ecological footprint of clothing companies deeper: according to The Business for Social Responsibility Clean Cargo Working Group, “After electricity generation, global transportation is the second-largest source for CO2. Roughly 30 to 40 percent of these CO2 emissions are from the transport of goods, and these emissions continue to rise.” Shipping is not regulated by the Kyoto Protocol, thus making it less controlled than aviation, another large contributor to pollution.

There are a lot of easy ways to minimize your ecological footprint by buying and taking care of your clothing in an informed manner. If you wash your average T-shirt warm, tumble dry and then iron it, its lifetime care will lead to the equivalent of a 17-mile airplane flight. Think about how many t-shirts you have.
Do the multiplication.

There are so many little things that one can do to help protect the environment – my advice is to do simple things at first, like paying attention to clothing and its impact.

How to stay green in managing your closet:
1. When buying clothes, think about how many times you will wear that article.
2. When getting rid of clothes, take the original cost of the clothing and divide it by approximately how many times it has been worn. If it cost more than a dollar to wear each time, then you should wear it a few more times to get your money’s worth or give it away and never buy it again – don’t make the same mistake twice.
3. Choose organic cotton – it has the same texture and life as regular cotton, except it is environmentally friendly. Stores such as American Apparel, Patagonia, and Timberland offer organic clothing options.
4. If you order clothing online, have it shipped by ground; it takes more energy to have your clothing flown to you.
5. When washing clothes, use cold water. Heating water wastes energy and can cause colors to bleed.
6. Use a drying rack instead of a drier – it’ll cut down on your energy bills.
7. Mend garments instead of throwing away shirts with lost buttons and torn jeans.
8. Dissolve stains immediately with earth-friendly stain removers like Ecover. When dealing with sweat stains, soak shirts in salty water before throwing them in the wash>
9. “Dry Clean Only” is normally code for “Can Be Washed By Hand”.
10. Instead of throwing clothes away, donate them to charities or to thrift stores. If they are too old to be reused, turn them into rags or patches.
11. Buy clothing that is made in the USA or Canada; it will take less energy to have it delivered and also will be produced in a more earth-friendly environment in many cases.

Stay Green!
Love always,
Lizzy

Dear reader,
There has been a request for a list of my values because they have changed so much in the past few weeks, so I figured I’d entertain the idea and create a list; this list can also be seen as an outline for a lot of things that I will be discussing in this blog.  A lot of what is below I have sculpted from previous ideas and values, but a lot of it is new, I feel. These values are not in order from most important to least or vice-versa. I feel are all very important to understand before reading anything I have to say. These are a blob of beliefs and opinions which I will discuss later, so understand that these are summaries of the beliefs, not the value in its entirety. Without further ado, let’s go:

-The environment’s protection and preservation is neccessary.
-The government is so messed up that it needs to be overhauled.
-”The medium is the message.”
-Advertising is subliminal and often times used to exploit children, teenagers, and even some adults.
-Money is awful because it does awful things to people.
-War is not inevitable, and needs to stop.
-Talking is the best way to sort out an issue.
-People should be allowed to bear arms, but should understand the implications of this freedom.
-Outsourcing is wrong; people should support the “MADE IN THE USA” movement.
-Art should never be censored, above all things.
-Censorship is unAmerican.
-Banning books should be made illegal.
-Separation of church and state is needed.
-Wiretapping is an infringement on the First Amendment.
-Teachers should be allowed to make their own decisions without being abused and hassled by parents.
-Students aren’t challenged as they should be.
-College admissions are just a puzzle that can be solved with the right amount of money.
-It is better to be poor and intelligent than to be dumb and rich.
-All news has a subjective spin due to human nature.
-Most of life is subjective.
-The three R’s [reduce, reuse, recycle] should be followed religiously.
-The institution of marriage is a joke. It should only be for those who are religiously affiliated, and everyone else should have to go through a hardcore civil union application that should deny or accept based on whether the two people will stay together, be responsible with children, etc.
-The two parties that we have in the US are a joke, also. People should be allowed to support some democratic ideas and some republican ideas if they so desire.
-People need to work on their vocabulary.
-People should read instead of watch TV.
-Wikipedia is a neat idea, but getting slightly dangerous.
-Non-abstinence sex education should be implemented to help bring down the levels of children living in poverty or in other unhealthy situations.
-Intermediate families should bond through a mix of educational and entertaining activities instead of just watching TV or driving to school. It’s important to know your intermediate family on an intellectual level.
-Every child should go to camp. And by camp, I mean outdoors camp where you actually are literally living outside.
-God does not exist, but everyone is welcome to their own religion and should be respected for that.
-Women and men are equals. They should receive equal pay and equal merit always.
-Minimum wage is not a living wage.
-Houses should be more proportional to the size of the family, as should cars.
-Depression is an epidemic, and must be stopped without drugs.
-Marijuana should be legalized and cigarettes should be banned.
-Kids should be able to drink at 16, but drive at 18.
-Public transportantion needs to be strengthened in the U.S.
-People need to stop being apathetic about things that do not directly affect them but harm another.
-Genocide needs to end.
-Allowing China to continue letting their coal mines burn is unnacceptable.
-Organic food [and to take it a step farther: vegetarian/vegan] diets are the way to a healthier lifestyle.
-Fast food should be outlawed [exceptions being healthier options like Chipotle].
-All you need is love.

There are many more, but I figured that was a good place to start.
Thoughts?

Love always,
Lizzy