The connection between what you wear and animal welfare
Originally most clothes were made by hand. Every item was created individually for the person who would wear it. The invention of the sewing machines and the Industrial Revolution resulted in mass production of clothing, which simplified the design and boosted the regularity of modifications in fashion.
Not too long ago, clothing was made to last for a very long time. Once broken, apparel would be fixed or modified to carry on serving a purpose. The idea of walking into a shop to pick up an item of clothing or ordering it online is relatively new. Yet, currently the habit worldwide is to buy multiple pieces of clothing to only wear them a couple of times before chucking them.
Thankfully, more and more individuals and businesses are starting to select clothes not only based on the look and price. People want to know where their clothes come from, what fabrics are being used and if the materials are produced in a way that is damaging to the environment or animal welfare.
Where do Sustainable fashion and Wildlife conservation meet?
Sustainable fashion must preserve resources whilst supplying, developing, transporting, marketing, retailing, and consuming fashion items. For fashion to be classed as sustainable, people, animals, and the nature must be taken into consideration. Essentially, the wellbeing of humans, wildlife and the environment are very closely interconnected.
Cruelty to animals in the fashion industry is one of the main unethical sides of fashion. Cows slaughtered for their skin; foxes packed into tiny cages and sent to fur farms to be killed; birds live-plucked for the feathers… all the animals that are destined to die to become a fashion item live a life of constant suffering and die painfully.
Apart from the animal cruelty side of fashion, there is a massive issue with the volume of clothing that goes to landfills and incinerators. Statistics say that the number of clothing that ends up as environmental waste has doubled in the past 20 years. Actually, over 80% of all used apparel ends up as trash, which makes fast fashion one of the key waste generators globally.
Some mistakenly believe that unwanted clothes made out of natural fabrics can be composted. That is not the case. Natural materials go through a lot of chemical processing on the path to become a fashion item. When clothing ends up in landfills, it releases toxins into the air, groundwater and soil. Many materials will take thousands of years to biodegrade. All of this affects wildlife directly by poisoning its habitat and pushing the progression of climate change, which is an enemy of all life on the planet.
Let’s take a further look at some of the new approaches in the fashion industry.
The steps being taken
Imagine a world where the very clothes you wear help fight climate change by taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. Well, imagine no more because that world is here and now. This has been made possible by Dian-Jen Lin and Hannes Hulstaert the duo behind Post Carbon Lab, a science-lab-meets-fashion-studio creating zero-waste microbial dyes that harness photosynthesis to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Around 20 per cent of the world’s industrial water pollution comes from the treatment and dyeing of textiles.” With 350,000 tonnes of clothing ending up in landfill each year in the UK, the overproduction of clothes and their environmentally damaging life cycle challenges the existence of even the most ethical brand. The lab’s trailblazing biotechnology incorporates nature’s process of carbon capture – namely photosynthesis – by which plants take in carbon dioxide and turn it into glucose and oxygen. The “plant” here is instead a “living layer” on the textile cultured using photosynthetic microbes. Microbes are tiny living things that are found all around us and are too small to be seen by the naked eye. They live in water, soil, and in the air. The human body is home to millions of these microbes too, also called microorganisms.
Wearing a garment that releases oxygen improves the immediate environment of the wearer. It takes just six weeks or so of treatment at Post Carbon Lab for a T-shirt to produce the same amount of oxygen as a six-year-old tree in the same period, and it continues to photosynthesize (though the rate is variable) once the treatment is finished. In 2017, New Balance was involved with research into responsive microbes in sportswear, and in 2003, designer Suzanne Lee coined the phrase “biocouture”. Microbes are incredibly diverse and the possibilities for exploiting their potential are limited only by our imaginations.
Olivia Rubens, the Canadian designer who won the 2020 ITS Responsible Fashion Award, presented her microbial-pigment-dyed cardigan, created in collaboration with Post Carbon Lab, at Helsinki Fashion Week last year. Right now, the photosynthetic coating only comes in green, such is the nature of the chemical reaction, but other shades are in the piloting phase and the microbial pigmentation comes in many colours.
Of course, these new microbial garments will not solve the problems brought about by the fashion industry but it is a step in the right direction. On the next post we will look at specific fashion materials and how you can help drive the theme of sustainable fashion.
Visit https://www.postcarbonlab.com/ to learn more.
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