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
