Introduction

In a world where environmental concerns are mounting, many of us are seeking ways to live more sustainably. The fashion industry, long criticized for its wasteful practices and environmental impact, has seen a transformation in recent years with the rise of circular fashion. In this blog post, we will explore the advantages of circular fashion for the environment and society, provide practical tips for consumers, and discuss how to enhance information literacy for making sustainable choices.

The Environmental Benefits of Circular Fashion

1. Waste Reduction: In a linear fashion system, garments are often discarded after just a few wears. Circular fashion emphasizes repair, reuse, and recycling, resulting in less waste and reduced environmental harm.
2. Resource Conservation: Clothing production consumes vast amounts of water, energy, and raw materials. By reusing and recycling textiles, circular fashion helps conserve these valuable resources.
3. Lower Carbon Footprint: The production of new clothing items is often energy-intensive. Circular fashion reduces the need for new clothing production, thus lowering the industry’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Societal Advantages of Circular Fashion

1. Job Creation: Maintenance, repair, and recycling of clothing require skilled labor, contributing to job creation and strengthening local communities.
2. Fostering Creativity: Upcycling clothing and customizing designs encourage individual creativity, allowing for unique expressions of style.
3. Affordability: Second-hand clothing and thrift stores offer budget-friendly alternatives to expensive new items, increasing accessibility to high-quality clothing for more people.

Practical Tips for Consumers

1. Shop Second-Hand: Explore thrift stores or online platforms for high-quality, second-hand clothing finds that align with your style and values.
2. Repair and Upcycle: Rather than discarding damaged clothing, learn basic repair techniques and unleash your creativity through upcycling projects.
3. Conscious Shopping: Support brands dedicated to circular fashion practices and look for certifications like GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) or Fair Trade when purchasing new items.

Enhancing Information Literacy for Consumers

1. Research: Educate yourself about sustainable fashion practices, materials, and brands. Verify the credibility of your information sources.
2. Ask Questions: Inquire about a brand’s sustainable practices and materials in stores or online. Informed consumers drive sustainable change.
3. Share Knowledge: Disseminate your knowledge about sustainable fashion on social media or among friends and family. Education is the key to change.

Conclusion

Circular fashion offers not only environmental benefits but also strengthens society and empowers consumers to make conscious choices. By supporting sustainable practices, bolstering our information literacy, and selecting our clothing with care, we can collectively work towards making the fashion industry more environmentally friendly and ethical. Let’s take the step towards sustainable wardrobes today and contribute to a greener, more equitable future.

 

Edited with ChatGPT

photo by Alexander Grey unsplash

“Wood-based fibres for fashion are “a choice we all need to be aware of for a better life on our planet.” The majority of textiles today are still made of petroleum-based synthetic fibres. A limited raw material whose use is not good for our environment. Washing clothes made of synthetic fibres releases huge amounts of tiny particles into the oceans. An alternative are materials made from renewable, compostable raw materials. In the textile industry, this includes wood, especially TENCEL. Cellulose fibres made from wood currently account for 6 percent of total global fibre production. Clothing made of wood is pleasant to wear on the skin. We took a closer look at the material.

Wood fibres like TENCEL (lyocell &  modal) as well as viscose are comparable to cotton in terms of wearing comfort. They are soft, smooth and do not prick. They cool, absorb moisture and drape well. The fibres are resilient and high-quality and therefore durable, which is very important for our favourite garments to last a long time. Fashion made from wood fibres also has no special care requirements.

Why is wood a good alternative in the field of sustainable fashion?

Less acreage, less water, less chemicals and less energy consumption, less CO₂ than conventional cotton

Forests store CO₂ and cool the world. The bark, leaves and branches of trees as well as the wood in the trunk can be processed, e.g. into wood fibres. There are many forests here in the German-speaking countries and neighbouring countries, which makes local procurement and short transport distances possible. Beech wood in particular is used for the clothing industry here.

Approximately 4 T-shirts can be made from a log of 1kg. Due to the low material input, the production of clothing from wood can thus be regarded as resource-saving. The cultivation area of wood is up to 300 to 500 % smaller than that of conventional cotton and the land is already available.  In contrast to a T-shirt made of cotton, according to wijld, 1,000 litres of water, 150 ml of chemicals in the form of pesticides and fertilisers and around 600g of CO2 can also be saved just by the shortened transport routes. The CO₂ consumption of a T-shirt can be reduced by around 75% in fibre production.

Wood is a renewable raw material. A beech tree can grow to an average height of 35 metres and can be up to 300 years old. It grows 50 to 60 centimetres per year. This shows that this resource is also only available in limited quantities. In addition, forests have been increasingly exposed to extreme climatic conditions such as permanent heat in recent years here in the German-speaking countries, which has a negative effect on the regenerative capacity of the forest ecosystem.

Wood clothes are compostable within six weeks if nature-friendly dyeing etc. was used in the finishing process. So that the recyclables could be added back to the forest after the use phase.

There are also differences in the wood fibres. TENCEL lyocell, for example, is by far the most resource-friendly wood fibre, in contrast to viscose. Other wood fibres are e.g. bamboo and eucalyptus, which we will deal with another time.  

Manufacturing process

The viscose production process, i.e. the extraction of cellulose from wood, has been known since the 1900s. Over time, the process has been further developed and now, for example at Lenzing AG in Austria, no harmful additives or chemicals are used. The tree trunks are processed into wood chips and mixed with a non-toxic solvent to dissolve out the cellulose. The resulting thick mass is pressed through spinning glands to produce fine fibres. These are then bleached, cleaned and dried to make yarn.

“Tencel fibres are versatile and can be processed into different types of fabric – for example, smooth fabrics that feel like silk, firm denim or soft fabrics with a fluffy surface.”

FSC important label for sustainable forestry

When buying clothes made of wood, make sure that the wood comes from FSC-certified mixed forests, as these are subject to strict reforestation regulations and do not require the use of additional irrigation or pesticides.

Internationally, FSC is the most important label. FSC® stands for “Forest Stewardship Council®”. It is an international certification system for more sustainable forest management. The wood comes from forests that are managed more responsibly.

There are many suppliers of cellulose that cut down primeval forests and are not at all sustainable. Just have a look at Canopy Planet’s Hot Button Report, which takes a closer look at manufacturers worldwide. Suppliers such as Aditya Birla (India) and Lenzing AG from Austria achieve the highest values and are particularly environmentally friendly.

It is very important to look at where the wood comes from, that has a big impact on sustainability. Lenzing now has wood cultivation areas all over the world. To ensure short transport distances, it makes sense to use wood from nearby.

Suppliers of sustainable fashion made from wood

You can simply enter TENCEL (lyocell & modal) and clothing in the search engine or have a look at Wijld or Wood-fashion, where all products are made of wood fibres. Other suppliers such as Dedicated brand and Hessnatur also offer clothing made from wood fibres.  But also have a look at Seccond Hand Shops. Of course, the most sustainable thing to do is not to buy anything new. If you do need to, you can get a T-shirt for as little as 20 euros. Since the clothes are durable, this is a good investment.

When shopping, look for the materials that are on the textile label in German-speaking countries, look for TENCEL (lyocell). These are cellulose fibres derived from wood. They are also used as a blend with other natural fibres such as wool, cotton, etc. But also make sure that the wood is subject to FSC certification.

By using TENCEL clothing, you are contributing to Sustainable Development Goal 12 – Sustainable production and consumption patterns (SDG 12), as also explained in this film. 

Wood-based Fibers Could Lead Sustainable Fashion Out of the Woods | News | SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD

 

Sources

Bekleidung aus Holz: Holz ist genial!
Hot Button Report

“Made in Forests” – a short story about sustainable fashion – YouTube

Tencel: Das ist das Besondere an diesem Stoff – Utopia.de

Wood-fashion

Wijld

Homepage (fsc-deutschland.de)

Umtriebszeit: wie lange benötigt ein Baum bis zur Hiebsreife? – Wald-Prinz.de

 

Photo by Joel & Jasmin Førestbird on Unsplash

In order to achieve environmentally friendly circular value creation processes in the clothing sector, we need to look at what we do with the things we can no longer use ourselves.

Besides the typical approaches such as giving them away to family, friends, donating them to the clothing store, selling them on ebay and co., returning them to the seller, there is the alternative of composting the clothes and returning the “recyclables” to the environment. The slogan “biodegradable” is already being advertised in the fashion world. But do we consumers also do this? We took a look at the whole thing:

Which clothes are basically compostable?

“The most common natural fibres used to make clothes are cotton, wool, jute, hemp, linen, viscose (made from wood or bamboo) and silk. All of these base materials are biodegradable in their basic state.” (Trigema)

In principle, clothing made from natural fibres is biodegradable. This means that the clothing is broken down into its components and this “waste” is made available to the soil again as a nutrient. So that a cycle can develop.

What do I have to watch out for?

However, a lot of chemicals and pollutants are used in the production of clothing. An organic cotton T-shirt is not compostable if it has been finished with chemicals. Dyes and other softeners can likewise prevent what are actually natural raw materials from being used for recycling. Apart from that, we have to consider whether we want to wear them on our skin at all. Because these harmful substances can neither be found on the textile label nor in the product description, the Cradle to Cradle certificate is suitable for orientation. This ensures that the clothing can be composted without hesitation.

Suppliers are e.g. Freitag, Felipa K, Trigema, C&A (attention only the C2C products), Calida, Nordwolle & Klättermusen Farbaute (Outdoor), runamics (Sport), Stanley&Stella (Basics), Wolford.

Compostable clothing protects the environment and the skin, saves resources and strengthens biological cycles. Of course, this is not possible in the quantities currently consumed in the western hemisphere. The combination of less and compostable could be a sensible solution.

Where to put the T-shirt?

We asked the Berliner Stadtreinigung (BSR) whether we can throw a T-shirt declared as “compostable” into the organic waste bin if it is full of holes and really not nice anymore. 

“Whether such a T-shirt decomposes sufficiently depends on a variety of factors – e.g. the material components of the T-shirt and the respective conditions during composting. Against this background, one should not dispose of such garments in the organic waste to be on the safe side. In our plants, the T-shirt is treated like a bioplastic bag: It is screened out and ends up in thermal recycling. There is also the risk that these materials cause problems in our shredding unit because they have a different shredding behaviour than conventional biowaste.”

So, by no means throw compostable clothes in the organic bins if you want the raw material to go back into the cycle.

If I’ve bought compostable clothes and can’t put them in the organic waste bin, maybe having my own compost for the flat or balcony can help. We asked Judith from the Wurmkiste in Austria if I could have my cotton T-shirt composted in her box. The Wurmkiste is a compost heap in a box, supported by worms and microorganisms in the decomposition process. So especially exciting for city dwellers like us Berliners. Here is their answer:

“…cotton definitely works. It is even a most interesting process. First the fine fabric is gnawed on, after which only the “skeleton” of the garment remains. We once tried it with a pair of worn-out pants. It was directly an object of art during the decomposition 🙂 However, it takes a while. A whole T-shirt would then put quite a strain on a worm bin. It would really have to be worn out and the fabric appropriately thin so that it could be halfway composted after 6 months.”

 So in principle it is quite feasible to compost clothes in worm bins. That would be a nice communal neighbourhood project. In Berlin, for example, there is kubus.berlin, which deals with this topic and offers workshops.

Clothes that are not compostable, e.g. made of plastics, take hundreds of years to decompose. In addition, microplastics are shed and end up in the oceans and drinking water. A large part of it i s burnt, which is not necessarily good for the environment.

By buying clothes that comply with the Cradle 2 Cradle principle, we are doing something good for the environment and for ourselves. However, this also requires that we deal with “disposal” and ideally create a compost ourselves if we don’t already have one.

 

Sources:

www.trigema.de/magazin/oekologische-kleidung

www.unideal.de/magazin/kompostierbare-kleidung-cradle-to-cradle-prinzip

www.bsr.de

www.wurmkiste.at

copyright photo by Markus Spiske unsplash

For German Version use f.eg. Google Translate Bar