Sasha Shunko

Sustainability in the Fashion Industry - The First of Many Posts

This blog may come off as being a lot of things. It could be a huge environmental crisis rant, a love letter to my favorite fashion brands, or worst of all, my ADHD may turn this into a huge clump of words that make no sense with a little bit of a rant and love letter within them. There’s even some talk about marijuana. I better have your attention now.

Additionally, I have compiled a collection of good links to check out below giving more information about the topics I'm going to address.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

Every day we get up, look into our closets, throw some clothes on, and head out to begin our day. This identity we have formed around clothing plays a huge role in who we are and you can’t deny it. Yes, even you wearing boat shoes and khaki shorts. Like all your other twins, they still make you a different you (no hate, I just like to poke fun). We’ve built this modern-day dynamic based around our clothing to which point going out to buy more of it has become a hobby and not necessarily a need. I mean, did I really need another pair of Steve Madden shoes added to my already generously-stacked shelf? As much as I don’t want to admit it, I really didn’t…

The perfect stock image to describe this idea

While a part of me always knew that fashion and clothing contribute a whole lot to our growing environmental issues, I always turned away from the idea, not thinking too much about it. One day after hearing me talk about how much I admired the operations of fast-fashion, my teacher decided to sway my love by opening mine (and about 100 of my classmates’) eyes to the detrimental effects of this system on our environment.

(YOU ARE WELCOME AP EUROPEAN HISTORY STUDENTS ;))

The amazing documentary is called “The True Cost”. I would highly recommend it to anybody interested in the fashion industry and its growing impact on the world. To give the amazing film credit, it was directed by Andrew Morgan and produced by Michael Ross. Shoutout to you guys for opening my eyes to the traits of the fashion industry as well as making me even more picky about buying clothes.

Since then, I have researched and learned a whole lot about sustainability and creating clothing in a more sustainable way. Because the most sustainable way of fashionable living (not wearing clothes at all) is borderline illegal, I believe we should begin taking steps towards utilizing our clothes in a better, less-damaging way.

With our current fashion culture, it is typical to constantly be updating and renewing our closets and making room for new styles and textures. Thus, we need to rid of some of our old clothes. On average, a consumer will throw away about 70 pounds of clothing annually. After the oil industry, the fashion industry is the leading polluter in the world. Additionally, the effects of energy-production and long supply chains of the industry contribute to 10% of our total greenhouse gas emissions.

In this post, I am going to focus on the materials which are used to produce the clothing. Many common ones use up a ton of water, so I have made a short list of some great alternates and some information regarding the benefits of wearing these materials.

Let’s put the water stats into visuals (information from World Wildlife Fund):

If you’re like me, then this statistic shocked you and you started thinking “well crap, what can I do in turn to help with conservation?” I mean maybe you didn’t or really don’t care, but I’m going to tell you ways you should anyways. :)

First, it is always best to look for ORGANIC products. Organic cotton, for example, isn’t raised with harmful chemicals and pesticides like the more often used genetically-modified (GM) cotton. The chemicals used to grow non-organic cotton have been banned in the west, yet Indian cotton farmers continue to use them in order to keep up with the growing demands for GM cotton. If you are getting something that thus far can only be made with cotton, look for the organically grown one.

However, as shown in the visual above, cotton requires an insane amount of water to grow.

Thus, it would be best to look for materials that use less water or are recycled. Less water-wasting materials include:

Hemp

Okay, now you may be thinking Sasha why are you suggesting we buy clothes made of marijuana? Okay, no. Yes, hemp and marijuana are close plant cousins, but hemp doesn't have the same psychoactive properties that marijuana does.

In fact, while hemp can’t be used to get high, it has an insane amount of other uses. It can be used to make ropes, textiles, clothing, shoes, food, paper, bioplastics, insulation, and biofuel (to name a few). In fact, planting hemp can actually work to rehabilitate poor soil as well. Also, Hemp requires 50% less water to grow than cotton. Next time you go out to buy a shirt or dress, consider getting something made of marij- sorry, hemp instead of cotton.

Recycled Plastic Bottles

Believe it or not, some brands have found ways to turn hard plastic BOTTLES into something you can wear. (?!) In 1993, the brand Patagonia began to transform plastic bottles into polyester fibers which are used to make clothing. Today, they continue using plastic bottles as well as manufacturing waste and used clothing to produce their new lines.

Bamboo

Humans can now relate with the adorable bamboo-loving pandas by utilizing bamboo as a clothing material. Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world. Some species can grow a whopping 36 inches in 24 hours. If only I could grow that tall…. Additionally, after the first 6 months of weekly watering, bamboo doesn’t require any more irrigation.

While not super common, there are a couple of companies out there utilizing bamboo as cloth material, and I have heard it’s quite soft!

Used Clothing

While this isn’t a type of material, the most sustainable way to wear clothing is to buy it used. Go spend a day at a thrift or goodwill store and see if you find any interesting pieces you could add to your closet. You would be both sustainable and honestly pretty original if you come across something interesting.

(My favorite company) Patagonia has a “Worn Wear” (I’ll link below) website where they sell used Patagonia clothes that are all close to excellent condition. You’re both doing your wallet and the environment a favor by purchasing products on there.

There are many more creative ways that some companies have started to produce their products that I didn’t mention. Definitely let me know in the comments or in our homepage messages (we read them all!!) section if you would like a similar post like this in the near future, and I’ll be happy to oblige!

Also, let me know if you would like any lists or rankings of the most (and least) sustainable brands to (or not to) shop at, and I will post about that too!

Or I probably will anyway because I’m way too excited about this.

Lots of factors go into making a product “more sustainable.” What I wrote about in this post only begins to cover some of those aspects.

If we begin to take product materials into consideration, we can begin to make a lasting impact on our environment and make it a better world for us and our planet’s future. I hope you take any of what I said into account and hopefully make some sustainable fashion decisions soon ;).