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| 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
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