12 Ways To Lower Your Carbon Footprint For Clothes

In line with the Fashion month, this is my third and last clothes-related post. I hope you’ve found them informative so far. I’m wrapping it up with 12 ways to lower your carbon footprint for clothes.

Once again, I wrote these posts not to make anyone feel guilty, but to generate awareness about the sustainability of our clothes. It was ignorance that led us to this stage after all. I believe that the more we know, the more we talk about it, the more we can move away from bad environmental practices.

Thanks for caring!

Lower Your Carbon Footprint For Clothes!

1. Love what you have

When it comes to the negative environmental impacts of clothes, the best action could simply be no action. Most of us have more clothes than we need. If we love what we have, we’re not going to need new clothes unless what we have gets worn out.

Love what you have, and you won’t have to be on the lookout for new clothes all the time. No action required, but it translates to a lower carbon footprint in the long run, and savings. Win-win-win!

2. Consider a capsule wardrobe

Over-consumption is the main reason we’re generating so much clothing waste these days. We buy more than we need, like them less than we thought, and end up with more waste than we expected.

Having a capsule wardrobe not only reduces decision fatigue and helps clean up your wardrobe nicely, but it’ll also cultivate the mindset that you can live well with less. And this mindset will seep into other aspects of your life.

Try it, it’s life-changing.

6 Tips to Help You Create A Capsule Wardrobe

3. Choose quality over quantity

Have you ever visited vintage clothing shops? I marvel at how good some pieces still look. Clothes were made better back then. That’s why they can last decades and hold their shape.

Clothes of poorer quality aren’t as flattering and often wear out fast. As a result, they don’t have as much value when it’s donated to a thrift store. If you’ve noticed at secondhand stores, the fast-fashion pieces tend to look the most beat up and forlorn. The material and cut just don’t hold up.

My mom is a seamstress and she’s noticed that clothes made these days have done away with a lot of details that make them fit better. That’s what happens when speed and quantity are placed above quality.

Don’t blame the people who made these clothes though, they’re instructed to make them that way, and they probably were rushed.

Choose quality clothes so that they last longer and translate into a lower carbon footprint.

4. Shop Secondhand

The market is saturated with clothes as it is. I’m a big believer that secondhand clothes shops are the best replacement for the clothes shopping experience. You can find secondhand clothes at vintage shops, thrift shops, pop-up shops selling pre-loved items, even Etsy and eBay.

Besides helping to divert trash away from the landfill, you get to save money too! You’ll be surprised how many gems you can find in the secondhand market. I bought a well-made 80% wool coat at $25 and a maroon leather jacket at $23, but I bet there are even better deals out there.

5. Choose natural fibers

Natural fibers include cotton, wool, linen, silk, hemp, and jute. Though they have varying degrees of carbon footprints, they’re biodegradable and doesn’t contribute to microfiber pollution.

Tiny natural fibers do end up in our water, but because they’re tiny and biodegradable, they get broken down quickly.

The energy requirements for hemp, wool, and cotton are also lower than that of polyester or recycled polyester.

In addition, synthetic fibers such as polyester, acrylic, nylon, and spandex are plastic. They’re made from fossil fuel and are non-biodegradable. Once they’re thrown away, they’ll remain in the landfill for a long time. They’re simply not sustainable materials.

6. Be picky about the products you buy

We’re consumers, we hold the buying power that decides a companies’ profit. Vote with your money and make companies accountable for their practices.

If you can’t find what you need at secondhand shops, support ethical brands that care about sustainability. Look out for certifications to help you decide if a brand is sustainable.

Organic Certification

Whether it’s cotton, hemp, or linen. Organic-certified raw materials are better for the environment. Organic farming is better for the soil crops are grown on, causes less groundwater pollution, and has lesser negative effects on farmers’ health.

In fact, research has shown that organic cotton causes 98% less water pollution than conventionally grown cotton.

Fair-Trade Certification

To prevent buying from companies that exploit their employees, always choose fair-trade certified products. Apart from preventing unfair wages, fair-trade certification also requires companies to be environmentally responsible too.

Ethical Animal Products

If you’re buying something that came from an animal, be on the lookout for ethical certification. Animal cruelty is rampant in industrial-scale operations and we should prevent that too!

For clothing made with wool and down, there are Responsible Wool Standard and Responsible Down Standard respectively. On the other hand, if you’re at a small farm who produces their yarn ethically, I think it’s fabulous to support them too.

7. Lower your carbon footprint by changing the way you wash your clothes

• If it doesn’t smell and it isn’t stained, consider wearing it again
• Washing full loads of laundry is the most energy and water-efficient choice. If you’re not sure how much laundry is a full load, read this nifty article.
• Wash clothes at cool setting – you’ll cut your energy use by more than 50% than if you use a hot water setting
• Line dry when possible

Not only do you save on water and electricity, and hence reduce water and carbon footprint, you’ll save money too!

Also, your clothes will last longer when you don’t wash them as often and don’t expose them to high heat from the washing machine and the dryer. These practices help to preserve the color and shape of your clothes.

8. Consider a swap party when you’re done with a piece. Or donate

When you’re done with a piece of clothing, whether because it doesn’t fit anymore, or you got tired of it, don’t toss it! If they’re still in good condition, consider organizing a clothes swap party with your friends.

Otherwise, resell them or donate them to charities.

A word of caution about donation

A lot of our clothes donated to charities are sold to East African countries. Once there, if the quality of the clothes is too poor to be sold, they’re burnt or dumped.

Lately, because we direct such huge quantities of secondhand clothes to them, some East African countries are proposing a ban on the import of secondhand clothes.

If you’re donating clothes, make sure they’re of decent quality – no one wants worn-out or torn clothes. They’ll just end up in the trash.

9. Mend your clothes and wear them out

Extending the lifespan of your clothes is the best way to lower your carbon footprint without going out of your way. Other than changing the way you wash it as mentioned above, a good way is to learn to mend your clothes.

Don’t toss a shirt because its button fell off. Learn to sew buttons and mend tears and holes. Our grandparents used to do it, why shouldn’t we do it too?

10. Repurpose torn clothes if they can’t be donated

No matter how much we care for a piece of clothing, they’ll wear out someday. When they do, it’s time to get creative!

Worn out cotton shirts make the best rags because of their absorbency – simply cut them into squares. Also, when they get really beat up, you can cut them up and compost the scraps in your backyard. Don’t do that with polyester shirts though.

If you’re crafty, you can turn shirts that are too worn into dish scrubbies, coasters, produce bags, or just use them as rags. I’ve seen people cut up old t-shirts and turn them into cushion covers too.

11. Recycle

Old clothes can be recycled into industrial cleaning rags, insulation foam, carpet, and so on. But they hardly get recycled into new clothes because it’s a costly and difficult process. Even though H&M has a garment collection program, only 0.7% of all the materials used to make their products are recycled material.

So, don’t recycle clothes that can still be worn. Recycling shouldn’t be your default solution. Donate those. Recycle clothes that are torn, worn or so tacky no one in their right mind would wear it. Solo socks and beat up undergarments can also be recycled too!

Do look up on recyclers near you who accept garments and put these materials to good use!

Apart from H&M, Northface also has a Clothes the Loop program that aims to direct unwanted clothes away from the landfill. Do check out the website to find out if they’re collecting in a store near you!

12. Don’t impulse buy

I’ve walked past pretty dresses and tank tops in fast fashion shops and been tempted to just buy one! They’re priced so that you don’t mind just buying it even if you don’t need it. Well, don’t. You’ll clutter up your closet in no time if you keep giving in to impulse buy.

Fast fashion uses this kind of pricing tactic and constantly refreshed offerings to make us buy more clothes, more often. That’s how its unsustainable business model was created. Impulse buy seems so harmless, but when billions of people take part in it, it has huge repercussions.

The same applies to online shops where they sell cheap clothes without a clear country of origin or material description. Close the damn window.

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There’re many ways we can lower our carbon footprint with clothes. Often, we can improve our carbon footprint simply by changing how we treat our things.

As with all things, look beyond the product, and see what goes behind the creation of the product, and what it took to bring it to us. When you do that, you’ll get a better picture of the footprints involved, and it’ll become easier to refrain from partaking in instant gratification.

The price of a piece of clothing, or anything else really, is always more than what’s written on its tag.

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