It is estimated that nearly 85% of all clothing and textiles end up in landfills in the U.S. today. I can say that an average of 10 pounds of textiles including, towels, blankets, sleeping bags, shoes, underwear, bathing suits, shorts, T-shirts, coats, sweats, onesies, and more are picked up every day when I pick up trash in my little stretch of 1/2 mile of beach. That is a lot of textiles added to other beach trash. Add the amount of plastic….
Plastic in our oceans is rising. A new study estimates that over 5 trillion plastic particles weighing 268,940 tons are floating in Earth’s ocean. There must be a better way… and there is!
Fortunately two companies are committing themselves to reusing beach trash in their fashion lines.
Pharrell Williams Bionic Yarn, G-Star Raw, Parlay For The Oceans and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s Project Vortex is creating a denim capsule collection incorporating fibers from Ocean Plastic. Called Raw For The Ocean
In April of 2015, Adidas announced they would in partnership with Parley for the Oceans will be launching their own recycled ocean plastic clothing collection in 2016.
Using Recycled PET bottles is not new. Patagonia started the trend years ago and many companies have picked it up. It can be an effective way to recycle the millions of plastic bottles thrown away. But in an article by Earth Island, states that the microfibers from manmade fibers get into our waste stream anyway and are equally as bad. In another article Treehugger says ‘An estimated 1,900 microfibers can get rinsed out of a single piece of synthetic clothing each time it’s washed, and these microplastic fibers might be the biggest contributors to ocean pollution.’
In another story, a recycling art project called Everything Is Rubbish, is making a statement about beach trash by making shoes from marine debris. The video is very interesting, you can watch it here.
In 2013, a bride to be decided to wear a Beach Trash dress for her wedding.
In 2013, a 16 years made a dress from balloons that wardens had collected and made a dress to bring attention to the devastating effect that balloons have on wildlife.
While I am heartened to read about the reusing of marine debris to call attention to the problem… it is sad that no matter how much attention to give to the Oceans, the amount of trash and pollution is growing, not decreasing.
What do you think?
slide me on of those jackets b