5 Tips for Sustainable Shopping: Save Earth, Save Money
Have you ever heard of sustainable fashion? It’s a hot topic that becoming more and more popular nowadays, thanks to the pollution problems that the fashion industry is creating.
Sustainable Fashion
Over the past few decades, consumers are buying and discarding considerably more outfits. Between 2000 and 2014, clothing production round the world doubled, with shoppers purchasing approx. 60 percent more garments.
The apparel industry is liable for 10 percent of the total carbon emissions and 20 percent of its wastewater production which is the second-largest polluter of water. And in the end, only a few of these clothes are recycled, most of them end up in landfills. The important thing is that we should take small steps.
There’s plenty to cover when it comes to sustainable living, so just by taking a small step will make a difference in the long run. You would possibly be thinking, how do I start doing this? Well here’s just a very broad view of the small step which you can take and start a sustainable capsule wardrobe.
What is a Capsule Wardrobe? A capsule wardrobe is a small collection of items that never go out of fashion. If you begin shopping with a capsule wardrobe frame of mind, you will always be on the right path in starting a sustainable wardrobe. Here, I am providing some of the things you can do to lessen your effect on the environment when it comes to clothing:
Buy Natural Fibre – Being Sustainable
The most harmful fabrics within the apparel industry are made up of synthetic materials (polyester, nylon, acrylic, etc.) and use/release thousands of toxic chemicals during production. Synthetic textiles are oil-based products and are basically a derivative of plastic, meaning they’re not going to biodegrade. Always buy clothing made up of natural fibers (like wool, cotton, linen, silk, hemp, etc.) and not synthetic fibers.
Quality over Quantity
Donate
It is estimated that only 15% of unwanted clothes are recycled and approx. 10 million tons of cloth ends up in the landfill every year. Now a day’s people think that material things are a souvenir to prove certain status in your life. Delete that from your mind. If you had some dress in your closet for more than one year and you never used it, give it to somebody else who needs it
Avoid Trends, Buy Classic
The most sustainable thing you can do, when it comes to clothing is to buy an item and wear it frequently for as long as possible. Buying new styles is the worst thing you can do. Think about it like this, to make a new garment, a farmer needs to plant cotton seeds. To control pests he will apply pesticides and finally harvest it with large equipment, then ship the material to a processing plant.
The processing plant then uses a full lot of water, chemicals, and huge machinery to treat the material and get them ready for weaving. This treated material is then shipped to a textile mill where it will be treated with chemicals to turn it into a textile. The textile is then shipped all over again to a sewing plant, which then uses more water, oil, and huge machinery to turn the textile into a garment.
Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash
This garment is then hung in stores that flash neon signs so as to draw your attention and convince you to buy that product. You buy it and wear it 1-2 times before the trend is announced as “over”. Then that garment is considered as garbage and all energy and resources that went into its creation are wasted. This is happening each second, of each minute, of each day.
Buying Second Hand Buying
Second-hand outfits are the best way to shop sustainably. It slows down the production of new clothing and releasing of waste and toxic chemicals as well as keeps clothing out of landfills. 6. Size and Alterations One of the biggest reasons behind discarding outfits is its fitting.
Never buy the outfits of the wrong size, even if it’s on a huge discount. You will never wear it. Also, having a basic knowledge of tailoring will help you altering your clothing to fit properly rather than throwing it up. I hope the above-mentioned points had inspired you and removed a few stereotypes about what being sustainable means. If you had read the entire article, you’re already a much better person than the typical online shopper.
Originally published at https://theunblog.in on June 25, 2020.
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