Discovering Your Inner Locavore Part 2: The Clothes We Dispose

Sarah Nelson - Slow Food Blogger

One of the topics that I became aware of while at my conference was the ways we waste and take part in large scale pollution by choosing the clothes we wear. This wasn’t a topic of the conference, but it was one of the topics in a book that I brought on my trip to read. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend “Sheepish” by Catherine Friend. I got it because it looked to be largely farming-related, and I brought it along to read between my classes. Eventually, though, I was forced to put it away because it was laugh-out-loud funny. I enjoy this type of book at home when I’m, you know, alone, but I didn’t really want to be labeled the crazy, cackling, book lady in the corner so I saved it for the privacy of my hotel room.

Prior to reading this book, my thoughts regarding my clothes fell largely into three categories: cute, comfortable or way too hideous to ever go in my closet. When I spent my days as a suburbanite pencil-pusher, I worked hard to look like I fell out of a magazine advertisement, but now a days, I find that my only major fashion rule is that I won’t go out in public in my pajamas. I guess change is possible.

So you see where my clothes came from never crossed my mind unless you meant Macy’s vs. Target. I didn’t lose sleep over pollution caused by my fashion choices, and I didn’t even lose sleep over the idea that a first-grader in Bangladesh may have sewn my newest blouse. I was basically morally and ethically checked out when it came to clothes shopping.

You wouldn’t think that the clothes we wear would affect the food we eat, but it does. If you’ll stick with me, I’ll show you how it all weaves together.

1)      Disposable clothes

We are able to buy clothes so cheaply these days that they have actually become disposable. Add to that the constantly moving target of fashion trends, and clothes go in and out of our closets faster than Clark Kent could don his cape. According to Friend’s research with the EPA’s Department of Solid Waste, Americans throw away 68 pounds of clothing per person per year.

Most of you are probably like me and have already let yourself off the hook with the knowledge that you aren’t just tossing your clothes in the landfill, your clothes go to Goodwill. Even so, Friend goes on to say that only 10 pounds of the 68 is usually recycled or reused in some way.

Clothing material falls generally into two categories: natural fibers or synthetics. Natural fibers are something like cotton or wool, and synthetic fiber is, in a nutshell, plastic. Natural fibers will eventually biodegrade; however, those synthetic (i.e. plastic) petroleum-based fibers are designed NOT to break down so guess how long they live on in our landfills?

Bottom line: we’re buying (and then throwing away) way too many clothes. I need to tattoo that directly to my forehead. Although maybe the top of my right hand would be a better spot…then I couldn’t miss it when I grab my wallet.

2)      Plastic clothes

When I consider the term “plastic clothes”, I think of cheap sci-fi movies or maybe a certain blonde formerly teenaged pop princess’ music videos. I do not think of my own closet or yours, but they are in there. “Plastic clothes” is how I’m choosing to now think of synthetic fibers.

What’s so bad about synthetic fibers? Oh, let me count the ways.

I’ve already talked about how they are haunting us in our landfills, but there are other things to consider. As Friend points out, synthetics come from chemicals which come from petroleum. Hello, energy independence? How bad do we want it?

Then, we have to consider the vast amount of energy (read crude oil) expended in the production of these products. Add to that what other byproducts result from the process: “volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, and acid gases such as hydrogen chloride”. [Environmental Health Perspective]

But it doesn’t end there. After you bring home your synthetic fiber pants or shirt, you wear it, and after you wear it, you wash it. Endlessly, it seems, if you are the resident laundress of your home. Well, scientists have discovered that tiny particles sheer off of our plastic clothes and into our washing machines, and then what? I hope you aren’t a big seafood fan.

“PCBs, DDT and other toxic chemicals cannot dissolve in water, but the plastic absorbs them like a sponge. Fish that feed on plankton ingest the tiny plastic particles. Scientists from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation say that fish tissues contain some of the same chemicals as the plastic. The scientists speculate that toxic chemicals are leaching into fish tissue from the plastic they eat.

The researchers say that when a predator — a larger fish or a person — eats the fish that eats the plastic, that predator may be transferring toxins to its own tissues, and in greater concentrations since toxins from multiple food sources can accumulate in the body.”[The New York Times]

It doesn’t all end up in the ocean though. (I know. We were almost in the clear again, land-locked Tennesseans!) Another researcher, Mark Browne of University College Dublin, found that these itty, bitty plastic toxins also gather near cities particularly near sewage outfalls. These micro-plastics are also dangerous because of how they absorb other pollutants. Just like fish in the ocean gobble up the particles, I think it is fair to speculate that the particles in the city get gobbled up by mice and rats which in turn are food for cats and even possibly dogs which in turn may become food for our feedlot meat animals. Remember “The Meat We Eat”?

The particles are so small that we can’t see them, but we are ingesting them along with whatever they’ve absorbed.

3)      Natural fibers – Pollution?

Okay, so plastic is bad. Your next obvious choice is…….cotton. Zooey Deschanel and Colbie Caillat have us pretty well convinced that it is the fabric of our lives, and we feel good about it.

As Catherine Friend reports: “Cotton is the most-produced, most widely used fiber on the planet. Out of the annual world production of natural fibers of 30 million tons, 20 million are cotton.”

So, where does cotton come from? It’s a plant, and for me, that was reason enough to feel good about it. However, pollution is a problem even in what we tend to think of as a highly natural product. The production of cotton uses twenty-four percent of the entire world’s pesticides (usually petroleum-based) and eleven percent of its herbicides (also usually petroleum-based) and is grown on less than three percent of the world’s farmland. [WWF.org]

Those massive petroleum dumps then leach into ground and drinking water, and before we know it, we’re ingesting pollutants again due to what we choose to put on our body. Not to mention that these pesticides are known to cause birth defects and even cancer, and that is just what goes into GROWING cotton.

When you start looking into the manufacture thereof, you start seeing more and more scary chemicals: sodium hydroxide aka caustic soda, formaldehyde, sulfuric acid, bromines, urea resins, sulfonamides and halogens.

Sodium hydroxide is a substance that can severely burn the skin or even cause blindness in eyes. It is even corrosive to glass.

The EPA has this to say about formaldehyde: “It has also been shown to cause cancer in animals and may cause cancer in humans.  Health effects include eye, nose, and throat irritation; wheezing and coughing; fatigue; skin rash; severe allergic reactions. “

Honestly, I don’t even want to look up the rest of the chemicals because now all I can wonder about is our water treatment plants. Are they really up to the job?

4)      Cotton and water

Since we’re already talking about water, let’s consider something else: it takes 20,000 liters of water to produce a single t-shirt and a pair of jeans according to the WWF. How sustainable is that really? Because the industry needs so much water, they have begun diverting the flow of rivers to meet their needs. The result? Google images of the Aral Sea. If you go to NASA’s site (http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/aral_sea.php) you can see exactly how vast the devastation is to the Aral Sea (which is technically a lake).

NASA’s site states: “As the lake dried up, fisheries and the communities that depended on them collapsed. The increasingly salty water became polluted with fertilizer and pesticides. The blowing dust from the exposed lakebed, contaminated with agricultural chemicals, became a public health hazard. The salty dust blew off the lakebed and settled onto fields, degrading the soil.”

Knowing all this, what do we do? There are some good options out there.

First of all, stop buying clothes. I don’t mean altogether, but I think we can all agree that we buy more than enough. We buy to excess actually, but if you are going to buy, try a thrift, consignment or Goodwill store. If your friends get snooty with you, simply explain you are a conscientious shopper who is saving the earth one pair of jeans at a time. All hail, you queens and kings of reuse and recycle.

Second of all, organic clothing is out there. That will cut down on the amount of pollution that we’re supporting with our clothing habits. It is possible to get “good” cotton, but it won’t be wrinkle-free. It doesn’t actually grow that way; it’s a chemical process.

And thirdly, think animalistic - as in sheep, haired goats, alpacas, llamas, angora bunnies, and probably more that I’m not even thinking of. Release your inner weaver, knitter or crochet fanatic, and if you aren’t any of those, don’t feel bad. Me either. If you want to be, there is a fiber guild in Cookeville (and probably close to wherever you live), or if you prefer shopping to any of these exercises, just google it: organic knitwear, organic clothing, and go crazy. Well, not too crazy. Remember, you’ve already bought clothes to excess.

Last but not least, have you considered hosting a clothing swapping party? Get together a bunch of your friends, ask them to bring clothes that they don’t want anymore and simply swap! This is good for your wallet too! Reuse and recycle and have a party!

Again, I want to highly recommend Catherine Friend’s book “Sheepish”. Besides being laugh out loud funny, you will learn things you never knew about wool.

I’m sure there many other solutions that I haven’t even begun to think of, and if you think of them, please leave a comment. I need your great ideas too!

~ Sarah