Our Shared Shelf discussion

In our EcoFeminism book, author Elizabeth Cline mentions that according to the EPA in 2010 "Every year, Americans throw away 12.7 million tons or 68 lbs of textiles per person*." While an article from The Times reports that "Great Britain throws away close to 300,000 tons of textiles a year.*"

This is clothing that is deemed to un-savable and non-recyclable. And we cannot assuage our conscious by dropping it off at a second hand store, either. According to Cline's research in 2010, "less than 20% of what is donated gets sold at thrift stores. About half isn't even considered, going straight to a post consumer waste stream."

Now that we know the stakes, let's take a moment to create a list of resources that can help us to Reuse or Recycle our clothing. What companies created recycling initiatives to help reduce the amount of textile waste that ends up lingering in our landfills.

Or do you know of any blogs, you tube videos or other resources that can help us learn how to mend or better care for our clothing.

Let's build our resiliency together!

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*the fact of 68 lbs / American from 2010 is now closer to 81 lbs/American in 2020 according to various sources.

*https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cl...

- Patagonia
https://wornwear.patagonia.com/trade-...
Patagonia’s Worn Wear Collection offers a selection of used products the brand buys back from customers, washes, mends, and redesigns. So far, the collection features everything from NanoPuff jackets to vests, pants, and trail packs. Customers who choose to trade in items at the Worn Wear shop will receive credit toward new gear.

But the upcycling process isn’t easy — clothes that are beyond repair are disassembled and pieced together to make other products. Patagonia takes materials like reclaimed nylon rain-shell fabric and recycled cotton to make travel bags, toolkits, and more. Items like these are part of the ReCrafted Collection.

“Patagonia repairs more than 100,000 items each year in 72 repair centers globally,” read today’s press release

- Girlfriend Collective
https://www.girlfriend.com/pages/about
Girlfriend totes itself as being a big fan of the environment and of slow fashion. And the proof is across their entire business lines. "A plastic water bottle can take up to 500 years to decompose. Each pair of our Compressive Leggings diverts 25 bottles from landfills and contains 79% RPET and 21% spandex." As well as 100% post consumer packaging, healthy dyes, and iso certified manufacturing facilities with wage and worker protections.

"And when you're done with the piece or there is wear and tear the company makes it easy to return it for store credit through ReGirlfriend. From the beginning, we designed our leggings to be recyclable with minimal spandex content and without other fibers that can’t be sorted out. (Some other activewear fabrics mix lots of different fibers which restricts recyclability.) This allows us to easily separate the fibers, recycle them, and fully close the loop.

Once we receive your item, we work with our partners, Unifi in North Carolina, to shred the leggings, separate the polyester from the spandex, and regenerate the fibers into fabric for new Girlfriend pieces. Meanwhile, you’ll be spending your store credit on whatever your heart desires."

H&M has a recycle bin. https://www2.hm.com/en_us/women/campa...

I haven't read the book yet and I did not look at the examples provided in the comments.

However, I would like to bring our attention on the word recycling/recyclable.

We will all agree that recycling means being part of a cycle but it does not mean that this cycle has a positive impact. For instance, glass is known to be recyclable but I've read (don't mind me I do not have the reference) that it is extremely energy consuming. I suppose the aspect I would like to highlight is that recycling may be quite polluting.

I won't jump into the discussions yet. I need to read the book first. It was just an essential point I wanted to approach :)

Florian wrote: "We will all agree that recycling means being part of a cycle but it does not mean that this cycle has a positive impact. For instance, glass is known to be recyclable but I've read (don't mind me I do not have the reference) that it is extremely energy consuming. I suppose the aspect I would like to highlight is that recycling may be quite polluting.."

Whooooo. Right. There is no doubt that either making from new or recycling will carry a cost with it. And for the longest time, this is why most industries have preferred to make new items instead of reusing. And because it's been cheaper to make new items, I don't think we've done a lot to innovate around recycling different materials. I think the most we've done is looked into compostable materials if not plastics or bio-films that are easier to break down than plastic or glass (ala sun chips bags)

But we need to do something as resources are running out; landfills are overflowing, and our trade offs are not being accepted by us or others. This will hopefully force or promote businesses to try to innovate a new solution, but this is still trying to answer the question downstream.

If we can reduce consumption all together.... we'll be better off. Until then, we still need to figure out how to deal with stuff as is.

And this isn't a clothing item per say... but I highly recommend menstrual cups.

Menstrual Cups: Instead of using multiple single use tampon applicators 12x a year during that time of the month; use a menstrual cup. Cups are medical grade silicon that you can reuse for years. Saving $$ on tampons / pads and reducing lots of garbage. https://store.lunette.com/
https://divacup.com/

Annie wrote: "Florian wrote: "We will all agree that recycling means being part of a cycle but it does not mean that this cycle has a positive impact. For instance, glass is known to be recyclable but I've read ..."

I fully agree with you, that is why I work (for now) in the area of biobased and sustainable plastics. I'm happy to read such comment! 😊 Thank you! 😀

Pam wrote: "In our EcoFeminism book, author Elizabeth Cline mentions that according to the EPA in 2010 "Every year, Americans throw away 12.7 million tons or 68 lbs of textiles per person*." While an article f..."

I hope more people will consider dropping off old clothing that can still be worn, and that more businesses add locations to drop off textiles. While this might be an obvious solution, I haven't seen many drop-off places to donate clothing, safe for a few Goodwill stores. The only other thing I have observed is a textile recycle bin near my neighborhood (not sure what company owns it but it's been used frequently).

Granted, this wouldn't solve the small percentage of donated clothing that is actually sold back, as in the 2010 research you cite, but could at least be a starting point.