Alyce Shirt Dress
I Just Gotta Tell Ya
- The average American throws away 68 pounds of clothes and textiles every year.
- 1/3 pound= The amount of chemical (pesticides and fertilizers) is used to grow enough cotton for 1 T-shirt.
- 47% of chemicals used to grow cotton are ‘likely, probable or known’ human carcinogens.
- 67 Million Annual bird deathes attributed to pesticides.
- 2.5 Billion pounds of post consumer textile wasted taken from the waste stream every year by the US textile recycling industry.
Green and Save Money and the Environment
- Consider not buying any clothes and just updating your current wardrobe with accessories.
- Have a clothing swap with friends- you might even consider having your own ‘styling show”
- Repair your current clothing- replace buttons, mend, shorten or lengthen pants or skirts.
- Shop at the Goodwill, or other used clothing stores- Retro and vintage are very in now. Used clothing saves resources.
- Make your own clothes using second-hand fabrics.
Green Fashionista
Personally speaking, nothing is better than having new clothes so if you have to buy consider the following:
- Buy clothes made from organic or have recycled content
- Bring your own reusable bags to the store. Eliminate all bags, especially plastic.
- Those little moisture bags (desiccant packets) that come with your clothes may contain toxic ingredients. That means they shouldn’t go in the trash. You can reuse them around the house. Put in shoes to absorb moisture or give them to your local dry cleaners for reuse.
- Eliminate clothing that needs to go to the dry cleaners.
- Clothing made under fair-wage and labor practices will usually advertise it. SweatShop Watch and Behind The Label are good sources of info
Making Your Clothes Last Save Valuable Resources
- Every time you wash your clothes, it shortens the life of the clothes. Wash less often and use cold water and line dry.
- Recycle and or Donate any clothes, accessories and shoes to your local thrift shop.
- Recycle any plastic bags and paper bags the clothes come in.
- Hangers- all metal hangers can be recycled as scrap metal. Some plastic hangers may have an identification number, so you know if it can be recycled. You can also ask your local dry cleaners to recycle.