Sustainable fashion: green is the new black
Project 0 -> 5 Tips to make your wardrobe more sustainable
Thank you for your interest in making your wardrobe more sustainable! In the following, we will explain the tips from the flyer in more detail and give some background information.
1. Buy certified sustainable clothing
Producing new textiles is a very polluting process. For example, cotton production accounts for 1/6 of all pesticides used globally and a lot of people work under terrible conditions. But by buying certified sustainable clothing we can reduce our negative impact, social and environmental, significantly.
Two of the biggest sustainable fashion certification labels are the Global Organic Textile Standard(GOTS) and Fairtrade.
On this website (https://www.siegelklarheit.de/en/siegel#/textilien;sort:rating_desc ) you find an overview of different sustainable certification labels and they also provide a detailed overview of most of the labels on what is covered by the certification.
2. Fix broken clothing
Clothing doesn’t last forever; however, we can make it last longer. It is amazing that a skilled tailor can still fix and repair a broken piece is always more sustainable than buying a new one. Even if you have to buy one t-shirt less each year, you would save 2700 l of water by not needing new cotton alone.
3. Washing less often and at a lower temperature
Washing your cloth costs energy. For most coloured laundry 30C and for white 40C are sufficient temperatures. If you wash at 40C you save compared to a 60C cycle roughly 45% energy.
You also have to consider that with each wash of synthetic clothing you create polluting microplastic. You can also install microplastic filters on your washing machine.
Overall your cloth will last longer if you wash them less often.
4. By second hand or rent clothing
We have already seen how polluting new clothing is, therefore it is good to use to the existing. It becomes also more and more popular to rent clothing from a “fashion library”, where you don’t buy but only rent an item for a limited amount of time.
5. Buy less, but better quality
“Quality instead of quantity” can make your wardrobe more sustainable. A t-shirt travels on average 14,000km until it is in your hands. You can save amongst other things a lot of transportation by buying less and you will see higher quality also last longer.