Being a Sustainable Consumer.
Transcript from Instagram Live Q and A.
How do I increase the longevity of my clothes?
Simple answer is to wash them less. If it’s a sports piece of kit then dry it in the sun first, as UV rays will kill a lot of the bacteria. Then stick it in the freezer for 24 hours. This is as effective at killing bacteria as a cool wash. If you do have to wash it then use a mesh or Guppy bag and reduce the spin cycle. Washing machines are designed to make our lives easier, but with increasing spin RPM, they damage the fibres which can cause more microfibres to be shed into the water system. Bags will help protect the garment and catch some of the microfibres.
How do I know if slave labour has been used in the making of my clothes?
Short answer is; you don’t. While there are laws and auditing systems in place designed to stop this, it’s not a perfect system and it’s open to exploitation. Especially when you get further down the supply chain such as spinning and fibre production. There are auditing companies that specialise in working conditions and pay, such as FairWear who work to ensure living wages are paid. A good example of how difficult it is for brands to manage this is the investigation into the Better Cotton Initiative who were found to use slave labour in some of their Xinjiang cotton fields.
Are there any sports brands that don’t exploit people and planet?
Not really, but that’s down to commercialism and capitalism more than a brand strategy, as all brands still need to compete. There are brands that do more than others, a good example of this are Vollebak who have created garments that are fully compostable. However, even they have work to do, as their supply base don’t currently pay living wages.
Where do my clothes go at the end?
Most likely landfill or incineration. If you use a recycling facility, or recycle through the council, they get passed on to companies that process clothes for them. Most recycled clothing goes on to resale in developing countries, which is not great for the local economies there. In order for clothes to be recycled they need to be a single fibre composition and without trims that need removing, such as buttons or zips.
What is greenwashing?
This is where brands exaggerate their sustainable offering in order to sell more products (which in itself is unsustainable!). The latest buzz word within greenwashing is “Circularity”, which means a continual, closed loop lifecycle, where the product is always in use or has returned to the earth. An example of this is On Running’s circular shoe they are launching next year. While they have given some information about the upper which they have said will be made with a minimum of 50% castor bean fibre, we don’t know what else that blend is made of, and they haven’t specified what they plan to do with the soles, laces or inners, all of which need to be circular as well.
Is recycled or recyclable fabrics better?
This depends on the yarn, if it’s polyester then neither really, if it’s natural fibres then recycled is better as you’re increasing it’s lifespan. There are a number of problems with recycled fabrics, firstly is that the most common method is mechanical recycling which basically means the fabrics are chopped up into a mulch and then respun into yarns. The problem with this is it shortens the fibres and decreases the strength of the fabric, which means it can only be recycled once. As I mentioned earlier, 100% fabrics are the ones that can be recycled, this is down to laws around the care labels which states you need to be able to specify a fabric composition to between 97-100%. If you don’t know what more than 3% of your fabric is made from, you can’t legally sell it within the EU (other countries vary). There is the debate around post consumer waste being used to make recycled fabric, such as PET bottles, but that is already a closed loop system so it’s not very transparent as to how that is accessed. H&M are making strides with chemical recycling where they use waste chemicals from the production of viscose to turn either cotton or cotton poly blend into a liquid form before turning it back into a fibre. This process can be applied to the same fabric repeatedly, but the more it’s recycled the more virgin fibre needs to be added in each time in order to stabilise the fabric. The other problem with chemical recycling is that big brands are patenting technology early on which shuts out smaller brands and suppliers from being able to participate.
What is the most polluting fabric?
Some people may disagree, but for me it’s neoprene. This is because one of it’s compounds is limestone which produces a ridiculous amount of carbon when it’s heated, which is required to add the bubbles, and therefore, buoyancy to the fabric. It’s also not recyclable due to the glues and other construction methods. Finisterre are launching a wetsuit next year made from recycled tyres, that is probably the most sustainable wetsuit to come to the market in many years.
