- Re-Think: Design with the entire fashion and product life cycle in mind giving thought to the end-of-life and how your designs could be re-used or disassembled for recycling. Choose fibres that will have less impact on the environment. Avoid using fibre blends as they complicate recycling processes.
- Reduce: Minimize energy and natural resource use as well as waste materials created.
- Reclaim: Collect and re-use waste products and materials only selecting those that would have been disposed of otherwise.
- Recycle: Select materials that have already been recycled from waste materials
- Upcycle: Use waste materials to create products of equal or increase, not decreased, value and quality than the original waste materials.
- Repair and Remake: Give existing items a face lift or revamp them for a new end use.
- Recreate and Revamp: Creatively reignite an existing design idea.
- Embrace Technology: Use technology to develop new processes and practices reduce the negative impact of fashion on the environment.
Every green bible you read these days withholds the idea of the Four Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Renew in regards to textile waste. There are actually two kinds of waste that make up textile waste: preconsumer or postconsumer. Preconsumer textile waste consists of by-product materials from fibre, yarn, or fabric production. 750,000 tons of this waste is recycled annually into new resources & as fillings for the automotive, paper, equipment, mattress, home furnishings, and other industries. At least this helps with the landfill issues which are where approximately 75% of the preconsumer textile waste is diverted from and recycled. Then there is postconsumer textile waste which is made up of any type of garments or household textile items that owners no longer need and throw away. This is what we are doing during this project by getting hold of second-hand garments and re-thinking, reclaiming, up-cycling, and repairing / revamping them. Really, if you think about it, this is where fast fashion and the desire of consumers to pay the least price possible for products has help lead to overconsumption and postconsumer waste. Among the postconsumer textile waste that is recovered, only about 48% is recycled as second-hand clothing and shipped to overseas markets (commonly in Africa) whereas the remainder is thrown into the trash and ends up in urban landfills (Council for Textile Recycling, 2003). With knowing how much textile waste is created I have to ask myself, as a consumer as well as a designer, if I make ethical choices. I can definitely say with embarrassment that I have previously not made very ethical decisions when purchasing textiles. I am certainly being smacked in the face with facts that my decisions have not been good. Apparently the textile recycling industry trying to encourage the recovery of an additional 1 million tons of postconsumer textile waste dumped into landfills annually.
Preconsumer waste has been recycled well by the textile industry, but the postconsumer waste still poses a big threat to the environment. It is the mixed blends and properties of fibres, dyes and all types of finishes and accessories that make it difficult to recycle postconsumer waste. Currently, there are still difficulties linked with the recycling of complex postconsumer textile waste, and the reluctance of the industry to use the recycled postconsumer fibres has made the circumstances worse. As a designer and a consumer I think I will find it very hard to incorporate these changes. For the future though, when hopefully I will be setting up my own business, I can implement recycling processes somewhere along my garment production by not only recycling and reusing preconsumer waste but also the fibres recycled from second-hand clothing.
Did you know this about recycling textiles:
- The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about 97% of post-consumer textile waste is recyclable.
- By simply donating all of your used textiles to participating thrift stores, you can help to significantly reduce the burden on our landfills
- Over 70% of the world's population uses secondhand clothes, so your old clothes can be used to help people in need.
- By recycling textiles you benefit your local community by creating local jobs that generate local tax revenue.
- Textile recycling companies work closely with charitable institutions to find new homes and uses for old clothing and fabric items, thus reducing the operating costs for thrift stores and freeing up funding to house, feed, and train the less fortunate.
- Textile recycling requires less energy than any other type of recycling.
- Textile recycling does not create any new hazardous waste or harmful by-products.
- Unwearable textiles can be reused as rags by paint stores, machine shops, auto shops, government, business and industry.
- Unwearable textiles can be converted for industrial uses such as noise reduction or upholstery.
- Each new home that is built uses 100 pounds of rags - isn't it preferable that these be locally generated recycled material that was saved from a landfill?
If you want to read up more/ interested:
http://ecco.org.uk/textiles.html
http://dustfactoryvintage.com/2007/06/rag-bone-textile-recycling-101.html
GOONJ PROJECT: Textile Recycling Initiative in New Delhi: Read more: GOONJ PROJECT: Textile Recycling Initiative in New Delhi Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/Textiles.html
(References:Chen H.-L., Burns L.D. (2006) Environmental analysis of textile products: Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 24 (3), pp. 248-261; Council for Textile Recycling. (2003). Don’t overlook textiles. Retrieved August 16, 2010,
from http://textilerecycle.org/ctrinfo.html; 1. Bangkok Post. (2010). Mylife living green - ATTITUDES MUST CHANGE
The Post Publishing Public Company Limited. All Rights Reserved; Cirillo, J.(2007). Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Beverage World, 126(1779), 58. Retrieved August 18, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1370720891).)
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