What to wear for a healthy planet!
Hello all!
For our third fanzine, we’ve decided to take a look in our wardrobe. Why? Because we often don’t realise how much what we wear can cause big problems for Planet Earth – and we wanted to find about about solutions.
That’s reflected in how many of the Global Goals – what the world’s governments have agreed as targets at the United Nations – can relate to producing, transporting and disposing of our clothing.
The good news is that people all over the world are looking for and finding solutions to some of these problems.
So, for example, more and more people are looking to buy clothes made of cotton from sustainable agriculture, which doesn’t use too much water in places where it’s scarce, or to use alternative textiles grown closer to home, like linen, wool or modal (wood fibre).
Synthetic fibres made from crude oil cause problems like pollution in the oceans – because their fibres don’t rot when they’re thrown away. Again, more and more people are looking for alternatives – even to synthetic fibres in sportswear, as we hear from Lucile on page 3.
There’s a growing move towards buying fewer clothes, recycling old clothes and “upcycling” textiles into new fashions, as Marine Serre does…
Wrap up your house
The original material (in French) comes from Thierry Toniutti’s company, Ouateco, which was reported on by the newspaper Sud-Ouest. For a similar experience in English, try this from The Guardian, a few years back.
Dirty jeans for the Arctic
The original report about the Arctic is in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. An easier read is this from The Brussels Times. There’s a fair amount of controversy about how often jeans need to be washed – but here’s the word from the man who makes them, Levi’s boss Chip Bergh. And here’s the Marine Conservation Society on their demand to force washing machine manufacturers to fit better filters to keep fibres out of the sea.
Masks for all
This story is one of several featuring high fashion workers getting creative in the fight against COVID-19. The New York Times had this take on the efforts by some of the world’s finest seamstresses giving away free masks.
The secret life of good news
Looking for more good news that is happening slowly but surely all around us? We’re inspired by the work of the Swedish doctor Hans Rosling. Watch him explain his ideas in this video and find out more at gapminder.org.
