Inside Your Environment
How sustainable is
your wardrobe?
Helen Adams
Hi I’m Helen, a Fashion Technician at Brighton MET and a student working towards a Masters Degree in Sustainable Design with a focus on the Fashion and Textile Industry. I recently launched a circular clothing label (more details later!) The fashion and textile industry is reported to be amongst the most polluting industries in the world. Here are some facts to put this into perspective: • Around 70 million trees are cut down a YEAR to make our clothes • 1 full dump truck of clothes goes into landfill EVERY second. • 23% of all chemicals produced round the world are used for the textile industry • 90% of Mongolia’s surface is facing the threat of desertification due to the breeding of cashmere goats • Approximately 260-300 million pairs of denim jeans are produced in China alone PER YEAR • It takes on average 10,000 litres of water to cultivate just one kilogram of raw cotton (which is used to make denim)
This regular feature will be exploring how we can create and maintain a more sustainable wardrobe and do our bit to combat the damage this industry does to our planet and the people on it. When we talk about sustainable fashion, you may also hear people refer to Ethical Fashion, Slow Fashion and Circular Fashion. These terms are becoming more common, so let’s look at the difference between them and really understand where we need to be heading when choosing our clothes. Sustainable Fashion This is the umbrella term for all the other terms, but if we look at it in its own right, sustainable fashion refers to how the production and waste of fashion and textiles effects the environment and the planet. It refers to the environmental costs of production, including the use of pesticides, dyeing and finishing, water and waste treatment, energy reduction, material choice, and packaging.
Taken from ‘Sustainable Fashion and Textiles’ by Kate Fletcher
“ Clothes are not going to change the world, the women who wear them will”
Anne Klein, Fashion designer.
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