Combating climate change - clothing

[watervole]

Yesterday saw temperature records broken all over Europe.

Scientific certainty on the man-made causes of climate change is now well over 99% .

We are an a very big, heavy ship and it is set on a course that will be very difficult to alter.

All we can say, is that the sooner we start to change that course, the better our chances of not crashing into the hypothetical iceberg.  The later we make changes, the less effective they will be.

Global temperature rises are not being driven by just the CO2 we emit this year, but by that plus ALL THE CO2 WE HAVE EVER EMITTED.

Most people reading this will never see lower temperatures in their lifetimes.  We're fighting for our children and our grandchildren.

Our children, if we're really lucky, will see temperatures stabilise in their lifetime.

Our grandchildren, if, and only if, our generation take action now, may see a reduction in temperature, if someone finds a way to take CO2 out of the atmosphere in large quantities.

Remember that planting trees will only absorb the CO2 emitted by cutting down those trees in the first place.  It will not remove the CO2 from fossil fuels.

So, who's ready for lifestyle changes?

Let's tackle clothing for today:

It's estimated that clothing accounts for 10% of the world's carbon emissions. That's because the production of clothing is very energy intensive and the supply chains are very long, with clothing being shipped all around the globe.

Now add in the environmental cost of washing all those clothes and the plastic fibres released by laundering poly-cotton, nylon, polyester, etc.

Now add in the problem of disposing of all the millions of garments that get thrown away every year - most of it is impossible to recycle and goes straight to landfill.

Can you reduce your own impact?

Why not try and see how long you can go without buying a new (second-hand is allowed) item of clothing?

I'm aiming for a year. The last new item I bought was last August, at Purbeck folk festival.  All I've bought since then is a second-hand pair of trousers, two scarves from a charity shop and a second-hand waistcoat for my sword dance costume.

I have a wardrobe full of clothes.  Apart from the occasional item of underwear, I really have all I need for all round the year for a long time to come.  All I'm expecting to buy in the foreseeable future is a pair of linen trousers - linen being a relatively environmentally friendly fabric and cooler to wear in summer, and I need something to protect my legs from insect bites when I go walking on the heath.

Comments

[kotturinn]

Like you I've accumulated enough of most clothes to last for a considerable time - in fact probably to see me out. I've also been using the local charity shops as the equivalent of a clothes exchange since I retired, particularly for trousers, with a recent purchase of a light summer outer jacket as backup for the old (we're talking 1980s here) one I love but which is probably going to get beyond realistic mending, to be seen in public, in a year or so. I have bought two new t-shirts and one new sweat-shirt in that time, both because CATS. My only planned purchase-from-new will be underwear.

[watervole]

You're a woman after my own heart!

Like you, I mend when I can.

I've got enough t-shirts to last a lifetime, partly because I used to buy them at SF conventions.

I think the more people who do this, and who talk to their friends about it, the more momentum we'll gain on the ridiculous over-production of fast fashion.

[kotturinn]

Previously my habit, inherited from my parents (my mother gardened for years in bits of my old school uniform!), of not immediately buying the latest whatever and having clothes that cycled down best -> work -> socialising with friends -> housework and gardening was definitely considered odd. More recently I've been asked about mending and can also report that my nieces are making conscious efforts to live in a more sustainable way.

Shoes (picking up on a comment below) are a problem. Once I used to get replaceable soles and heels put on shoes before I started wearing them. A combination of things stopped that, including the retirement of the good local cobbler. Fortunately I appear to be lighter on shoe wear since retirement!

[watervole]

My kids, bless them, are both really good on the sustainable living front. The eldest has been siphoning water from her bath into her garden and is currently linking up her water butts so that the levels will balance if one gets more rain than the other.

My youngest is furnishing his first house with a lot of second hand stuff (apart from new shelves from IKEA).

[feng_shui_house]

About all I ever buy new in the way of clothing are shoes (haven't bought any in several years, I need to get some soon, they're falling apart), undergarments (again, it's been years), and bathing suits (can't remember when-- at least 10 years ago, need new, the old ones are past public view).

Then again, I have a fabric stash from decades back when I used to peruse the bargain bins and the 'too small to sell normally, buy it cheap or we throw it out' bins.... maybe I can make my own bathing suit from pieced together scraps...

[watervole]

Go to the top of the class (shared with Kotturinn).

I wish I had a solution to shoes. I can make a pair last several years, but then have to replace.

It used to be easy to get shoes re-soled, but the manufacturers have stopped making new soles for them now.

I need to see if it's possible to get new heels for my dancing shoes, but the last time I tried a cobbler for that, the new heel was very unsuitable and didn't flex properly.

I'm starting to collect fabric from various second-hand sources. Hopefully, I'll find the time/energy/skills to make a replacement for my favourite skirt which has died beyond recovery after many years of wear.

[ranunculus]

I was delighted when the makers of the hiking boots that I wear altered their design to allow re-soling. I've already done one pair. I really don't use other shoes, except occasionally some old sandals. It is true that I have four pairs of boots that still fit, a couple that are all nicely shined for those hotel jobs, and some that are only fit for the Ranch.
Clothing wise I have too many t-shirts, coats and sweaters. No need to buy new for quite a time. Almost 100% of what I wear is cotton, and I seldom throw out anything that doesn't have multiple holes. The hardest part is keeping clothing black for work. That is the uniform, and black is about the hardest thing possible to keep looking good. We are very lucky though, there is a clothing recycling scheme in San Francisco, because, well, San Francisco.

[watervole]

Kudos to the hiking boot manufacturers! I so do wish I could get new soles in the way I could 20 years ago. I used to get through two or three soles before the uppers wore out.

Cotton makes very good sense. It has a high environmental impact when made, but if you've no plans to buy more for a long time, then it's the best stuff to wear. It's cooler (as I'm sure you know already), needs washing less often because it breathes better, and doesn't release plastic microfibres when washed.

Uniform is tough. My best suggestion is occasionally dying stuff, but I don't know what the environmental costs of different dyes are.

[feng_shui_house]

I used to make shoes for my teddy bears! ;^) That was easy because they don't walk very much, and so gluing reclaimed leather for soles worked fine.

I just remembered, I had saved instructions/patterns from various Native American re-enactor sites which included methods of making moccasins. I should try that (way back, I used to buy used leather clothing at the thrift store, so I could use that). Should be able to make gardening-suitable footwear, at least. :^)

[watervole]

Moccasins may well be a good idea. I've made a moccasin-style sole for a pair of hand knitted slipper socks and it worked well. I used leather off-cuts, but used leather clothing sounds a great idea.

Let me know how that works out - I might try it myself.

[igenlode]

And there I thought this was going to be a companion post about suitable clothing to cope with unseasonable weather :-D

I bought three pairs of pants (which are shockingly expensive, good-quality durable ones are anyway) earlier this year; one of the old ones has gone to rag and a couple more really ought to.
I also had to buy a white top from the charity shop for choir purposes, since it has been decreed that our next concert will take place all in white. And after I'd previously had to go out and buy a black top and trousers, because the default choir uniform was all black! (Everyone owns black clothes, don't they? Well no, because they don't suit me at all. And neither does white, which is why I've never worn it since we had the option of wearing blue shirts instead of white ones at primary school...)
Fortunately my old sailing trousers happen to be white. They'll just have to stick me in the back row and put up with them :-(

Oddly enough I've literally just spent the last couple of hours doing mending (as an act of desperate procrastination in order to avoid having to rewrite my 'action scene' to be shorter and snappier). I've meticulously backstitched a seam across the mysterious rip in my pyjama sleeve — the pyjamas are not that worn, and anyway they normally rip across the button band, the shoulders or the seat, not the forearm! — and blanket-stitched the raw edge so I can stick the mend in the wash. And then I finally got round to taking off the second cuff from my silk shirt, trimming off the strip where the sleeve had split, and re-inserting the new edge back into the cuff and restoring the seam with tiny tailored stitches. It was April 2018 back when I did the first cuff, and when the second one went on the very next wash I simply couldn't face repeating the exercise.

One more shirt for the wardrobe, although some of the ones in there are going to be rags soon. Only two jobs left on the mending pile; an armpit repair, which is going to have to be patched as the seam has ripped through, and the tail-end of the moth-hole darning I was doing last summer. (I strongly suspect that waistband doesn't even fit any more :-p)

My shoes are hand-made, which means they always get resoled (because the price of having new ones made is astronomical). It also means that even resoling is extremely expensive; it would be infinitely cheaper to buy a new pair from the shops every time I walk through the soles :-(
Unfortunately I have weird-shaped feet.

Even so, shoes don't last for more than three or four resolings. I've had to pay for two new pairs after the uppers wore through — maybe a fifteen-year lifespan? When you walk or cycle everywhere, you get through a lot of shoe-leather.

[ranunculus]

I agree that those of us who walk a lot definitely go through shoe leather!
My current mending nightmare is how to fix 4(!!!) holes the dog chewed in an almost new plaid heavy flannel shirt. The holes are across the back and she actually must have chewed off the material and eaten it. I have quite a lot of "tail" on the shirt but am not quite sure I can match the plaid. Also not sure what kind of edge would look best....

[igenlode]

According to my invaluable 1930s book of household needlecraft (also lists three or four ways of finishing seams without needing a sewing machine, let alone a serger), to patch flannel garments you should cut a patch the size of the hole and allow 1/4" extra for turnings.
Tack the patch onto the wrong side of the garment. Beginning at a corner, fasten down the edges using herringbone stitch, preferably with silk thread. https://www.needlework-tips-and-techniques.com/herringbone-stitch.html
The upper stitches should go through both patch and garment and the lower stitches should fall just below the raw edge. (This will help finish the edge of the patch as well as fixing it on.)
Turn the garment on to the right side and cut away the worn area to within 1/4 inch of the stitching. Now herringbone the edge you have just cut down onto the patch.

Alternatively (recommended for children's frocks) you can use a 'dress patch'.
Put the garment face-up on the table and take a piece of cloth with matching pattern. Put it over the hole and turn under the edges of the material until you have a patch which covers the hole and exactly matches the design and weave of the garment. (Tedious but important.)
Cut down the turnings of the patch to 1/4" and tack it over the hole. Holding the patch towards you, sew down the patch onto the garment with small stitches, using cotton of the same colour or threads drawn from the selvedge. Cut down the raw edges on the wrong side and oversew or buttonhole stitch them to make them neat. Flatten out the sewing stitches by pressing with a warm iron.
(But note this will not work well on thick material, as you have three thicknesses of cloth at the edge of the patch.)

Alternatively, if you cannot match the pattern, use a contrast fabric (solid blue might look good?) and make a feature of your 'appliqué' design. You could try embroidering little motifs onto your patches :-)

[watervole]

I've been catching up on a lot of mending recently. Refixing buttons, patching a pair of linen trousers (wrong colour patch, but it doesn't look too bad as they're a casual pair).

Next on the list is patching the inside of a pocket.

[igenlode]

I've bought my first unnecessary garment of the year :-(

Four pounds fifty from the charity shop, and very stylish, but I have a wardrobe that is literally bulging out of the door with smart clothes that I rarely have time or opportunity to wear -- I 'dressed up Victorian' yesterday to go to a picnic just because I haven't worn that stuff since I acquired it at university and lost it in the bottom of a trunk until last year...

[ranunculus]

I was just thinking of a couple of other things that I'm trying to do to reduce waste.
I switched from a commercial toothpaste that comes in a non-reusible, non-recyclable tube to plain old baking soda. It is salty, but works well to clear up any little irritations in the mouth and it definitely does change the PH in the mouth which is most of the job of a good toothpaste. In the future I may try to make something slightly more appealing, with a touch more abrasive, using one of the online recipes.
I'm considering trying to make shampoo as well. Not sure I'll succeed at that, but there are some bulk options at the local co-op.
Paper bags go to the corner store, or to the pet store to be reused.
The occasional bag used for vegetables (string beans come to mind) get used as dog poop bags once they have been washed and recycled for other produce a time or three.
I'm experimenting with silicone bags for medium and small size items. They aren't quite as handy as Ziplock bags but pretty good!! Small silicone bowl lids make amazing lids for tea mugs while the tea steeps.

[kotturinn]

So glad to find someone else who washes and reuses plastic bags! For me the final use is as a bin/waste basket bag - can honestly say I've never bought rubbish bags in my life. I have enough, of all sizes, to see me out as after my parents died I snarfed their bag of bags to go with my own, and the occasional ones I still get

[ranunculus]

We have been washing plastic bags for many years.
When I was growing up in the 1960's and early 1970's my parents were reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Mom was helping out in the Family Planning clinic with the idea that the world didn't need any more people in it, especially unplanned ones.
We moved into a home they built in 1966. It had a solar hot water set set up, a water bath cookstove that heated water inside in the winter and so on. We composted, had a garden, canned, made some of our own clothes, butchered our own chickens and sheep and so on. I remember Mom made me a wool plaid, pleated skirt when I was in first grade. It was extra large and held up by suspenders. Over the years the suspenders went away the hem was let down and the waistband altered. I wore that skirt through forth grade. Its final outing was as a swim suit in Mexico when I didn't have one! So I had a head start on thinking about being environmentally aware.
By the time I was in late high school I was refusing to take bags at the store, especially if it were only for one or two items. Several years ago I purchased a bottle of wine at a shop. The shop-keeper said I had to take a bag. I asked him if he wanted to make the sale or not. Apparently he did.
I have purchased trash bags, but exclusively for our mountain trips where we haul trash out in the boat. I should figure out if I can do anything differently there - it is tricky because we are also being aware of bears.

[watervole]

It appears that baking soda may wear away the enammel, so I'd be careful how much you use it and I certainly wouldn't add more abrasive to the mix.

I use a flannel rather than a toothbrush. It's cotton, so I just put it in the laundry at the end of the week, and will compost it eventually.

I tried a toothpaste that was some kind of clay, but that gave me a sore throat, so I'm back with the stuff in a tube at present.

[ranunculus]

That is interesting. All the sources I found said that soda is a base component of most homemade toothpastes and is fine to use alone - but it might not be abrasive enough, which is why most toothpastes contain small amounts of fine clay. I am careful with the amount of peroxide I use near my teeth!

[jacey]

I've still got a load of good stuff that I bought at folk festivals during my Artisan years. Bear in mind we 'retired' in 2005, much of it is 20+ years old, but it will never go out of fashion because it was never in fashion in the first place. I don't buy disposable clothes. If I get rid of anything it goes to a charity shop, or a homeless shelter, or directly to a friend who is a similar size with similar tastes. I knit or crochet my own winter woolies (tunics mostly) - again nothing fashionable. I lost some weight last summer, so I bought a couple of new tunics in smaller sizes last summer/autumn, but I haven't bought anything new this year except a lightweight dressing gown that I needed for a hospital thing. It will last me forever. I still have a stash of fabric from my sewing days. Maybe one day I'll do something with it... if I have time. As for shoes, I mostly wear Merrells. I have feet built for comfort, not for speed (or fashion). As for the rest of it... I don't travel much these days. My little car does about 2,000 miles a year at most. My biggest faling is buying more food than we can eat. It goes out of date in my fridge and then I waste it. That's not good. Will try to do better.

[igenlode]

If it goes out of date, cook it immediately :-D
(Even lettuce...)

Unless it actually smells bad, it's almost certainly fine to eat. That even extends to cheese with mould on the surface; I've eaten bread with the beginnings of mould on (by mistake) and don't recommend the flavour, but nothing bad happened to me as a result.

Once food has been cooked, its 'best before' timer effectively resets, and you get another two or three days out of it (depending on what it is and how you cook it and store it afterwards, potentially longer).

[jacey]

Yes, I've never been prissy about the dates on the packet. I go by my nose. (And, indeed, even if the date has not expired, I've occasionally thrown stuff out because it didn't smell right.) Mould on cheese isn't as problem. In fact cheese keeps way beyond the best before date, and in some cases is better for it. (It tells you when it's NOT edible.) I'm wary about fresh fish/shellfish once it's beyond its date, however. My dad had a friend who managed one of M&S' food departments and he said that the sell by/best before dates usually has a week's safety marging built into them.

[watervole]

I know what you mean about folkie clothes. They don't date. I still get compliments on a pair of dungarees I bought nearly 20 years ago at Sidmouth, and have worn many times since then.

[watervole]

I think the simplest tip with regard to food is to have a smaller fridge. IF the fridge looks full, you may be less likely to buy more.