Clothes Waste

Weekly Sharing March 21st, 2013

by Lady Varesqua Valentina

We always thinking about less waste with less plastic bottle by using tumbler.
We always thinking about carrier bag, better to use plastic bag or paper bag.
We always thinking about go green with less paper by using e-book.

We always think about what we see, but never see ourselves.

When you look him from the outside, you know that he uses some clothes.
1. Jacket
2. Batik
3. Jeans
4. and of course underwear

People often change their clothes in a day, many clothes that they use in a day.
People sometimes buy a new cloth and many clothes that they buy in every time they go to shop.
And the fact, some clothes are rarely used or used once a month or a year.

Actually :
•  People not regularly checking what is in their wardrobes, clothes are most commonly unworn because they no longer fit or are in disrepair.
•  Many people lack an ability to alter clothing or undertake more complex repairs
•  People are willing to buy and keep their own clothes but won’t to share it, even though they never wear the clothes.

 

The global average water footprint of cotton fabric is 10,000 litre per kilogram.
It means that :
•  It takes 7,996 gallons water to make a leather jacket
•  One cotton shirt of 250 gram costs about 2500 litres water.
•  A jeans of 800 gram will cost 8000 litres water.

Our habits by fashion consumerism not only about the water footprint, but also the impact and the waste.

There are some facts about clothes

The materials used to make the clothes we buy also matter:
•  Polyester, the most commonly used manufactured fiber, is made from petroleum in an energy-intensive process that emits volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and acid gases into the air. The process also uses a large amount of water for cooling.
•  The manufacturing of nylon emits nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas with a carbon footprint 310 times that of carbon dioxide.
•  Rayon, derived from wood pulp, often relies on clearing old growth forests to make way for water-hungry eucalyptus trees, from which the fiber is derived.
•  Cotton, found in most clothing, is the most pesticide-dependent crop in the world. It takes one-third of a pound of pesticides to make one t-shirt.
•  When manufacturing clothes, dyeing requires a hefty amount of water, and its fixatives often flow into rivers and sewers. Also, all “easy care” and “permanent press” cottons are treated with formaldehyde.
(http://earth911.com/recycling/household/clothing-and-textile/facts-about-clothes/ )

 What will happen if we still have a habit “fashion consumerism”?

•  Americans still throw away more than 68 pounds of clothing and textiles per person per year. Clothing and other textiles represent about four percent of the municipal solid waste stream.
•  UK throw away more than 1 million tonnes of textiles every year.
•  Clothes go to landfill.
Landfill sites pose a threat to local ground water supplies. Every time it rains, water drains through all the rubbish, and picks up chemicals and hazardous materials from whatever is in the landfill site. This includes chemicals used in clothing and textiles such as dyes and bleaches. The water collects at the bottom of the landfill, often in large amounts and can be up to 200 times as toxic as raw sewage.
(http://www.ethicalfashionforum.com/the-issues/recycling)
 

What should we do?

•  Stop shopping and used your full-life-time clothes.
If the clothing is not wearable, convert it into wipes that can be used around the house to clean up spills, wash your car, etc. Take soft clothing or towels and tear them into usable pieces for dust rags. Repurpose your old towels by donating them to an animal shelter or organisation, they could always use fresh towels for their animals to sleep on. If you are handy with a sewing machine, the clothing materials could be re-purposed into items such as cloth bags, hats, mitts, quilts, etc.
By re-using existing fibres and textiles, there is no need to make these textiles from raw materials (such as cotton, wool, and synthetic fibres) This saves on the energy used and pollution caused during manufacturing processes like dying, washing, and scouring.
•  Even if the clothing is un-wearable and you don’t have the time to do anything with it, ask the Charity if they will still accept the item(s). In most cases the charities have agreements with recyclers to accept any clothing items that are un-wearable.
(http://eartheasy.com/blog/2010/05/lets-keep-clothing-out-of-our-landfills/)

Donating clothes to charity:
•  Charity shops collect over 15 million sacks of textiles and other materials from UK households every year.
•  Over 363,000 tonnes of textiles are sent on for reuse and recycling by charity shops every year
•  If each household in the UK donated only one extra black bag of clothing, we could save 25 million bags from ending up in landfill and raise over £740 million for charity.
•  only 2% of materials donated to charity shops end up in landfill
•  Reuse of clothing saves 29kg CO2 per kg of clothing compared to recycling and 33kg CO2 compared to disposal
•  Reduce 3.6 kg of CO2 emissions, 6000 litres of water consumption, 0.3 kg of the use of fertilizers, 0.2kg of the use of pesticides
(http://tilts-head.com/2012/10/17/statistics-uk-recycling-reuse-and-waste-of-clothing/)

But whatever option you choose, it is important to know that there are options. We all live busy lives but with a little effort we as a society have the capacity to divert over 10 million tons of textile waste from the landfills each year! A prime example of how a little effort can go a long way!