NEW LIFE FOR OLD CLOTHES
How to reduce textile waste
Metro Vancouver residents toss 44 million pounds of textiles into the garbage each year. That's a lot of clothes.
In fact, it amounts to roughly 17 pounds of clothing per person — the equivalent of about 44 T-shirts — according to statistics made available through the region's Zero Waste Committee.
“Textiles are a big part of what goes to landfills, and we want to make sure that we reduce that,” says Jack Froese, the chairman of the committee.
Metro currently has a 64 per cent diversion rate for its municipal waste, according to Froese, which he notes is one of the highest rates in North America.
“But that still means there's 15 million tonnes of waste in our landfill from items that could be reused,” he says.
Froese points to the Think Thrice About Your Clothes campaign, which is in its third year, as an important contributor to helping reduce the amount of textiles that end up at the dump by educating residents about the available avenues of disposal for unwanted items.
Available avenues include donation of clothing and accessories that are clean and in good condition to second-hand, thrift and consignment stores in order to give unwanted items a second life. As for garments that are worn out, Froese has a suggestion for those too.
“One of the myths is that, if you have a piece of clothing that's worn out, ripped or torn, that nobody wants it so you just throw it in the garbage rather than sending it off. But it still can be used,” Froese says.
“New products can still be made out of it. I think that's a misconception, that it has to be good enough for someone to wear before I can send it off.”
Froese says that, while some regional repositories are specifically looking for clothes that can be resold, there are lots of other locations where a bag of end-oflife textiles can be dropped off for sorting and recycling. Return-it depots across the region accept textiles, while select retail stores have also introduced textile collection in recent years (though many of these initiatives were paused during the COVID -19 pandemic).
“Some of it may have to end up at the landfill — but at least give it a chance to be reused,” Froese says of the reclaimed materials.
FEWER, BETTER
As textile waste continues to be a growing concern, many sustainably minded shoppers are embracing the idea that buying fewer fashion items, of better quality, is the only way to ensure that less clothing ends up at the dump.
It's an idea that Randa Salloum, a Vancouver-based creative and entrepreneur, has shifted toward in an effort to appreciate fashion, but in a more sustainable way.
“To me, sustainable fashion means that each item has been thoughtfully created, from inception to end use. From using natural fibres and biodegradable packaging to creating timeless designs that will be handed down for generations,” Salloum says.
For several years, Salloum was a popular blogger, receiving samples and promotional items from companies in the hopes that she would showcase them to her readers and followers.
In 2018, unsettled by the speed of the industry and the amount of waste it was producing, Salloum says she “was forced to face” her reality and the role she was playing in the bigger waste problem.
“As a fashion and lifestyle blogger, I had my hand in promoting consumption of fast fashion, toxic products and mass consumerism,” Salloum says. “It was when I cleaned out my closet of 85 items that I did not purchase, made of synthetic materials, that I realized I needed to change. It pains me to know that I had 85 items that I no longer wore.”
It was time, she says, to revisit her values around consumption.
That re-evaluation prompted her to take a new direction with her online presence, promoting the idea of investing in quality pieces that could last for years rather than for seasons.
“Fast fashion was the easiest to kick, for myself, but I know it can be harder for others,” Salloum says. “For those who decide to continue to support fast fashion retailers, I suggest that your first task should be to only choose items made from natural fibres and not synthetic. Truth be told, once you accomplish that and say no to synthetic, it's going to be a quick jump to no more fast fashion. You can find the same items, made better, from other companies.”
SEE, WANT, RENT
Rental is another avenue of conscious consumption that seems to be gaining popularity with trend-focused shoppers. Renting clothing, it seems, is no longer for special occasions.
“Businesses are being part of the solution,” Froese says, pointing toward fashion rental programs as a key component in the growing movement toward more sustainable style options.
Montreal-based Lxrandco, which operates shop-in-shops at select Hudson's Bay stores, is poised to launch a rental program for luxury designer handbags.
“People aren't shopping in fast fashion as much as they used to,” Ashley Lamontagne, director of ecommerce at the company, says. “They're making different and better choices. And that's what rental can do.”
The company is planning to launch this spring with 50 preloved handbag styles — each one in “pristine” or “very good” condition, according to Lamontagne — with the aim of building out the selection of handbags on offer in the future.
“It's really important to us that we do give bags a second or third life,” Lamontagne explains of the approach to used goods.
For a monthly fee, with a minimum commitment of three months, a customer can carry an `It' bag, without having to invest in the full price to purchase it. Additional insurance, Lamontagne says, is also available to renters.
Each bag is shipped with packaging and a shipping label to send it back at the end of the term. The handbags are cleaned and repaired, as necessary, between each rental, Lamontagne explains, and the bags are expected to remain in the company's rental program while in demand. Then, they will be sold.
The rental approach means that four different people could potentially carry a bag in a year.
That pre-loved approach is an idea, Lamontagne says, that sits particularly well with gen Z and millennial shoppers.
“It's just becoming really `cool' to support local and support sustainable. And to re-wear the same thing multiple times and to invest into a capsule closet. And, we're seeing that,” Lamontagne says. “It's a combination of people caring and social media globalization.”
A UNITED SHIFT
While an increasing number of consumers and customers are onboard with the idea of exploring more sustainable fashion options, the shift toward more `green' practices can still be a challenge.
That's where company's like Vancouver-based Recloseted come in.
“Recloseted is a one-stop shop for sustainable fashion brands,” explains Selina Ho, founder and CEO. “We help launch and scale slow fashion brands and help existing brands become more sustainable.”
Using targeted business, sustainability and design services including an online Conscious Label Launcher and Conscious Apparel Accelerator program, the company guides brands through the process of embracing a more ecological approach.
The company has worked with more than 150 brands, according to Ho.
For businesses and individuals, Ho's advice is much the same: choose one or two sustainable values or initiatives and put them into practice, adding additional shifts over time rather than going for a full, disruptive overhaul all at once.
“Just start! I know incorporating sustainability into your life or brand can be overwhelming, but if you chip away at it and tackle things one step at a time, it can become a long-lasting change,” Ho says. “The most important thing for consumers and fashion businesses to remember is that sustainability is doable and approachable.
LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE
As with most advancements these days, technology is an important element of the path forward. And, finding a more sustainable future in fashion is no different.
Danielle Statham, co-founder of the Singapore-headquartered company Fibretrace, says sustainability is as much about where the fibres that make up a garment came from as it is where they end up.
Inspired by the testing practices to safeguard against counterfeit money at the retail store level, the Fibretrace technology sees luminescent pigments — a “minute smart dust,” according to Statham — added to fibres.
The `smart dust' embeds into the raw fibre, which is the “largest emitter of raw carbon in the supply chain.”
Once that smart dust luminescent pigment is embedded into the fibre, it can't be removed, essentially providing a “passport to travel through the supply chain,” according to Statham, collecting information along the way about the fabric, yarn, manufacturing facility and more.
“What's exciting about it is we access that information in live, real time,” Statham says. “So the brand can understand where everything is in the supply chain for that garment.”
The approach affords a new angle of traceability in manufacturing, allowing for a brand to know exactly where their textiles are coming from, down to the farm the materials were grown on.
That access to information prompted American brand Reformation to partner with Fibretrace on a recent collection of denim.
“The collection is made from Good Earth cotton, which is sourced from the first climate-positive farm in Australia,” Kathleen Talbot, director of operations and sustainability at Reformation, says of the six-style collection.
“Through the land-management processes, the farm actually absorbs more carbon than it releases. So, it's actually reducing carbon emissions in the atmosphere through its operations.”