[All] Recycling Textiles

Sun Jul 9 20:50:44 EDT 2017

Yup  - hadn’t heard of fast fashion until my course in Sustainable Business Management. There are a number of companies that use the ends of fabric rolls, for example, that are collected in big warehouses. Tonle, in Cambodia I believe, cuts from the biggest pieces, then puts the rest into strips that it joins together and  knits it into a garment. The final scraps are mixed with rice and water to create their labels. 

I think it would be really cool to have a fashion show with only repurposed garments...maybe run it alongside that horrendous  annual Total Woman’s Show. We could set it as  challenge to the fashion students at Conestoga College to create them – and on “real” people’s bodies. Would be part of a larger event to bring attention to the fabric waste in landfill etc and all other related issues. 

Susan K 

From: All [mailto:all-bounces at gren.ca] On Behalf Of Caterina Lindman
Sent: 9 July 2017 06:42
To: GREN >
Subject: Re: [All] Recycling Textiles

I watched a documentary on Netflix called "The True Cost".  It's about the fashion industry, and how clothing has gone from something we buy sparingly and use until it is worn out, to something that we buy much more often and treat as disposable.  The price we pay is not very high in monetary terms, but there are lots of disadvantages - human rights abuses, where the labourers are subject to awful working conditions, environmental issues, where the production uses a lot of energy and chemical inputs, and disposal issues.  Disposal in landfills is problematic, and when the garments are brought back to the global south, it can undermine the local production of clothing.  In a very real sense, the workers are treated as disposable.

We may want to think of our goal in this effort as not only to reduce the amount of textiles that ends up in our landfill, but to reduce the amount of textiles that are purchased in our region.  How can we accomplish that?  Some ideas are:

Educating people about the fashion industry "fast fashion"

Educating people about the slow fashion movement - fairly-traded, sustainable clothing.

Helping people tidy their clothing wardrobe.  I am reading the book "The Life-changing magic of tidying up", and I tidied up my clothes.  (Here's an animated summary <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMtU14F7sHs>  of the book).  The beauty of this method is that you go through all your clothing, and decide what to keep, based on your emotional relationship with your clothes.  You only keep what sparks joy. Clothes are folded so that they are vertical, and you can see all the clothes in your drawer.  While this initial purge will increase the amount of clothing that is sold to thrift stores or re-used elsewhere, what is left are clothes that you really appreciate and value.  This then opens you up to consuming fewer clothes in the future, because you now appreciate and value what you own, and you will ensure that new clothes are pieces that you will wear often and will be with you for a long time.   

On Fri, Jul 7, 2017 at 11:02 PM, Lorraine Grenier <lyric55 at hotmail.ca> wrote:

The community is not aware that used clothing is one of the number one major environmental hazards as are cig butts right up there.

Shelters are a big cause of discarded clothes out into our parks and public areas and then into the trash.  I see bags of clothing from shelters tossed into the park daily.

Lorraine

Sent from my Bell Samsung device over Canada's largest network.

-------- Original message --------

From: John Jackson <jjackson at web.ca> 

Date: 2017-07-03 11:58 AM (GMT-05:00) 

To: Caterina Lindman <caterina.lindman at gmail.com> 

Cc: "GREN >" <all at gren.ca> 

Subject: Re: [All] Recycling Textiles 

We haven't determined a purpose yet - other than to keep them from going to the dump - and making the best use of used clothes. The purpose of the meeting would be to discuss what we would want to achieve. 

John

------------------------------

John Jackson

17 Major Street

Kitchener N2H 4R1

519-744-7503 <tel:(519)%20744-7503> 

On Jun 30, 2017, at 10:09 AM, Caterina Lindman <caterina.lindman at gmail.com> wrote:

If clothes are brought to the Goodwill (which is at Gate 2 at the Waterloo Region Landfill on Erb St.), are they either re-used or re-cycled?  That seems to be the indication from the Region of Waterloo website.  Sabine's slides seem to imply that Goodwill in London is only interested in clothes that can be re-used.

Is the purpose of Gren's project to encourage people to drop their clothes off at Goodwill if they cannot be re-used, and to donate them to Goodwill or another second-hand shop if they can be re-used?  

On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 11:37 AM, John Jackson <jjackson at web.ca> wrote:

I've had several requests for the presentation that Sabine Weber made on recycling textiles at our June GREN meeting. That presentation is now in two files on the GREN website at http://gren.ca/documents/ 

I also heard from some people who would like to develop this into a project for GREN to work on over the next year. If you have interest in exploring what we might do, let me know and I will set up a meeting (probably at my house) to pull together ideas. 

John

------------------------------

John Jackson

17 Major Street

Kitchener N2H 4R1

519-744-7503 <tel:(519)%20744-7503> 

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