Clothing

Clothing, of course, is at its most basic level merely another form of shelter.

It can also be art. And clothing today is certainly more comfortable and efficient at protecting the body than clothing of the past (although not necessarily more artful).

Take shoes, for instance. For most of human history, they were rather crude affairs, with even something as obvious as shoe sizes being a rather recent innovation.

And cotton clothing, once only available to the rich, is now available to even peasant populations worldwide (in the form of t-shirts, for example), whereas in not-so-distant times, most people had to wear crude clothes made from uncomfortable, rough fabrics. (Check out this enlightening article by Howard Bloom.)

But how can the waste and pollution associated with the manufacture, distribution, laundering and disposal of clothing be reduced or eliminated?

For example, how many of us really need to own clothing that requires dry cleaning, an extra-cost process that uses environmentally harmful chemicals like tetrachloroethylene, and formerly carbon tetrachloride, the same substance used to kill insects in butterfly collections? Can’t washable fabrics be used instead?

Fabrics can now include anti-microbial substances that are deemed harmless to the wearer’s skin, but which will prevent the growth of bacteria and fungi, on for example, athletic socks. So-called “smart” clothing is said to safely repel stains and even insects, and can even be imbued with fragrances and anti-perspirants.

Clothing has successfully been created from not just such familiar materials as mammal hides, cloth or synthetic rubber, but also such plant materials as bark, hemp, bamboo and soy, which are perhaps more sustainable substances. And the Hezhe people of China used to wear beautiful clothing items fashioned from fish skin!

Spun bamboo clothing is extremely soft and yet biodegrable, while at the same time having a natural antimicrobial quality which reduces its accumulation of body odor when worn.

But modern clothing production often produces large numbers of “unusable,” oddly-shaped left-over scraps of cloth, after the fabric is cut. This material is often wasted, as is the clothing which winds up in landfills after being worn only a few times and discarded.

But what about recycling clothing? After all, while many people turn up their noses at clothing sold by second-hand stores such as Goodwill Industries or the like, others line up to buy what they consider “fashionable” items at used-clothing “boutiques.” One person’s trash is certainly another’s treasure.

Especially in relatively affluent areas like Southern Florida, for instance, “thrift” stores often sell clothing that is nearly new, having been donated by some prosperous individual who lost interest in wearing a particular item. In fact, sometimes such clothing actually is new and has never been worn, having been donated by a retailer, perhaps in exchange for a tax break.

And it seems a great waste of the planet’s, let alone one’s own resources, to buy something in a retail store (at a premium price) when a very similar item that has been discarded/donated can be bought for much less. In fact, thrift stores often contain items from top-name brands, which thus are often of higher quality than what the average person might purchase even when buying new clothing in a regular store!

Another ecological advantage of clothing bought this way is that it’s not covered with plastic packaging which the buyer winds up paying for and then having to discard.

So why not benefit from someone else’s extravagance, and buy designer clothing at a thrift store? And if it’s still serviceable when you tire of it, re-donate it so someone else can wear it. What’s wrong with saving money, and at the same time reducing waste?

(CONTINUE READING)