Feb 2023 - results
Saving emissions: Sustainable fashion choices
Feb Goal: Reduce emissions by 0.3t of CO2e this calendar year
How: Minimising new clothes and lowering our environmental impact. Think extending the life of our wardrobes by repairing, upcycling and washing less😉, buying secondhand and swapping when we want new.
Verdict: Outperforming! On track to save over the 0.3t CO2e target, mainly because my wardrobe is already too large! This one requires long, sustained changes on the gradual reduction to a fashion sufficiency wardrobe.
Sustainable Fashion Choices - our Feb theme
Just buy less
Finding new ways to update the wardrobe, just not with new clothing.
On track for 0.3tCO2e saved!
Keep it going
Keep existing clothes around for longer by repairing and upcycling.
Crack out the needle and thread (iron-on tape also fine!)
Wear and care
Making better wash or not choices and understanding the impact of laundry products.
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No more phosphates!
Feb results - how did we go?
Goal #1 - Just buy less (minimise new)
Recap: the textile industry accounts for about 10% of total global greenhouse gas emissions and produces 20% of global waste water, whereby far the number one way to reduce emissions is to just buy less. This is also an area of global emissions where individual choices (us, the consumers) drive the problem and we can actively reduce that problem by buying less. Australia as a country has one of the highest rates of per capita (i.e. the average per person) fashion purchasing, along with other G20 high income countries.
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I bought around 16 new items of clothing last year and one pair of new shoes, which along with drycleaning contributes around 0.7t CO2e a year. I went back to reforecast the carbon impact from my wardrobe and ThredUp's calculator can no longer be found online. I have my original data but this is the biggest challenge in trying to reduce your footprint, being able to easily measure and track progress. You can see my post on tracker's here, all easily available trackers or calculator's are imperfect but they do give us a proxy for being able to understand an order of magnitude of environmental impact between different choices we make in our everyday living.
Progress #1 - No new fashion
The biggest difference we can make to reduce emissions from the fashion supply chain is to just buy less. It's that simple. I haven't bought any new clothes since pre-Christmas, resisting the temptation of the Boxing Day sales and starting a new job. That's fantastic progress, but it's also only two months of resistance with a big wardrobe that is already in play for me. This goal is not just a quick fix and will need to be sustained year after year as clothes age and wear.
Progress #2 - Eek! Time for the sewing kit
If you read this post (see the link above) you'll remember I am not raised from good seamstress stock. No, it is no specialty of mine so actually attempting to sew on bottoms, remove a seam and shorten some straps was a big deal. But I did it, and actually, setting aside a bot of Netflix time and frustration aside I felt pretty chuffed with the poorly sewn but wearable outcome at the end. I do recommend finding someone who loves the ol'sewing machine though and considering an exchange of goods or services ( I will happily wash dishes and undertake many chores to avoid this particular task).
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3 outfits saved from a little effort. I ended up wearing the dress I pulled the seam out of to loosen up weekly since giving it a go at the start of Feb. Winning!
Goal #2 - Keep it going
Recap: "Every year, Australians buy an average of 27kg of new clothes and purge our wardrobes of 23kg. In 2018-19, Australia generated 780,000 tonnes of textile waste, only seven percent of which was recycled (the rest went to landfill)." As with goal 1, this goal was about buying less (or not at all) but by extending the life of clothes I already own, or those already in circulation. Apparently extending our clothes by an additional 9 months to what we would have normally kept them for will, on average generate a 25% annual reduction in the carbon footprint.
Goal #3 - Wear and care
Recap: We've trialed new phosphate-free and fully biodegradable washing powders. Adding the stain remover from Source Bulk foods meant the difference to our previous brands was not discernible at all.
On the washing front, we're only washing clothes that need it, but our microfiber bag is still on it's way. The reality is the washing machine industry is still catching up to the scientific awareness on microfibers (first discovered in 1997 with more supporting research in the early 2000's, and yet....). and Government policy hasn't pushed for manufacturers to change (except in France, with more countries on the way).
Dirty sock, clean sock. Dirty sock, clean sock. Notice the difference?
We have generally been washing less, I like to fill the ol'10kg monster machine before doing a load of clothes so that helps. We focus on airing if it's not dirty or smelling as an alternative to washing after each wear.
Long term goal: Build a fashion sufficiency wardrobe