• Question: How can we make environmentally friendly clothes?

    Asked by Tim_Burton to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 13 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Laura Schofield

      Laura Schofield answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Hi Tim_Burton. That depends on how far you want to go with the whole environmentally friendly thing! If you want to be completely environmentally friendly, we’d be running around naked all day, but I think apart from anything else, it’s far too cold for that!!!
      We already make clothes out of cotton (which comes from plants), hemp (another one from plants) and wool (from sheep) which are environmentally friendly because they come from a renewable source (as in, we can keep growing the plants and breeding the sheep and it doesn’t take very long for them to be big enough to useful).
      Fleeces and some jumpers are made from recycled plastic which is also pretty good for the environment as it means our landfills aren’t filled with waste plastic.
      There are scientists (like me) that are working on making all sorts of plastic from plant material (which is renewable) so in a few years it is possible that the majority of our clothes will be more environmentally friendly!

    • Photo: Rebecca Ingle

      Rebecca Ingle answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Environmental friendliness is actually a really complicated problem. There are loads of things to consider – how far have materials been transported, are the materials themselves renewable (sheep sort of are but is there an environmental cost associated with keeping said sheep and looking after them) are any harmful chemical products that are difficult to dispose of used during manufacturing? There are loads more things to consider too!

      I think one big issue with clothes is partly how much people are willing to pay. It’s often cheaper to buy things from abroad than make them in the UK, even though theoretically, you’d certainly have less environmental impact making them and transporting them locally. However, I think people are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of the environment, so I hope people will support attempts to make more environmentally friendly clothes.

    • Photo: Francesca Palombo

      Francesca Palombo answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      I guess using environmental-friendy materials and processes…not easy! But our ancestors and possibly some populations around the world are still doing that.

    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      I think this question may be directed at others, but one of the best ways of having environmentally friendly clothes is to buy clothes which are ‘timeless’ and/or can be easily adapted to fashion – that way you do not discard “last season’s outfit” simply because you think it is out of style! This reduces the number of clothes bought and you only replace your clothes when they wear out. If you can adapt something to fashion, great – you can reuse ‘last season’s clothes and save yourself some money. Finally, if you are no longer interested in your clothes, they can always be recycled by someone else wearing them (second hand market or charity donations), or if they have truly worn out, they can be shredded for use in insulation.

      Apply the principle of 3 Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: reduce the amount of clothing you buy (and hence throw out), reuse clothing through adapting it or learning to repair it if it tears, and finally recycle worn out clothes or through donations to charity! Each of these can save you money and it will certainly help to save the environment.

    • Photo: Matthew Camilleri

      Matthew Camilleri answered on 21 Nov 2014:

      When talking about environmentally friendly clothes there are two aspects that needs to be considered: the environmental issue and the sustainability issue.

      Cotton is easily grown in a number of countries, and it is a renewable source as it can be grown over and over. Ofc, this is not the only way how to make sustainable clothes, and therefore the environment is not the main problem when it comes to having sustainable clothes.

      The real issue with clothes is how sustainable they are, and this also includes a certain degree of economics. Have the people growing the cotton been paid accordingly, has the land been taken away from them to grow cotton, are they using child labor to make the clothes?

      At the end of the day making environmental friendly clothes is easy, but we still have to pay the price for making sustainable clothes, and this is in order to ensure that everyone is paid a decent amounts for their service in making the clothes.

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