Use These 5 Tips to Be More Sustainable About Your Fashion Lifestyle
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Did you know, the clothing industry is one of the most significant contributors to pollution and global waste? So much so that in the US alone, 11 million tons of textile waste – that is equivalent to 85% of all textiles – is thrown into landfills every year. Moreover, the fashion industry is also responsible for 20% of global water pollution!
When it comes to your fashion lifestyle, it starts from your closet! If you find a shirt that has a hole in it, do you throw it away? Do you find that your clothes are fading with each wash? In such a scenario, the instinct is to throw away worn or damaged clothes.
But we recommend that you don’t throw away your clothes every time. You can be more sustainable about your fashion lifestyle if you just take the 10 tips mentioned below to stop throwing out your clothes too soon.
Take Care of Your Clothes
If you do this right, you can prolong the durability of your everyday wear. Consider the following:
- Before throwing your clothes in the washer, remove any pins, buckles, zips, hooks, or other removable materials. Unbutton the buttons, unhook any hooks, unfurl your socks, and so on.
- Don’t mix your whites with any other colors. That will keep the whites whiter and brighter.
- Your darker clothes should be set to the shortest cycle on the washer in cold water as it can stop the color from fading.
- Or better yet, read the labels that it ensures that you are washing your clothes correctly.
- Also, this doesn’t get said enough; you need to maintain that your washer and dryer are being regularly cleaned and serviced as it will help to improve their performance. A broken-down dryer, that hasn’t been maintained in a long time, will only ruin your clothes.
- Finally, you also need to store them properly after they are washed and dried. Any clothing that stretches out easily like t-shirts and sweaters shouldn’t be hung, rather they should be folded. Sturdy clothing like khakis, cord, and denim can be folded too.
Donate Your Clothes
When it comes to throwing away your clothes because you don’t need them anymore, donate them to non-profit organizations instead. This is a quick and easy way of cleaning out your wardrobe. You will also be doing it for a good cause.
When looking for non-profit charity organizations, go for the ones that are sustainable and are making efforts to reduce their waste in landfills.
Or find charity shops in your locality that will sell your clothes to the locals and the profits will be donated to a good cause. In such a scenario, purchasing second-hand clothing is also a good option; it’s cheaper than brand-new clothes and it doesn’t end up in the landfill.
Buy from Sustainable Brands
If you need new clothes, buy from sustainable clothing brands such as People Tree, Reformation, Everland, Patagonia, and more. These clothing brands are focused on lessening their impact on the carbon footprint on Earth.
Moreover, there is a common misconception about cotton that it is a natural eco-friendly product. But the way that cotton is produced and manufactured makes it one of the least sustainable products!
How about you go for clothes that are made from more sustainable materials e.g. linen, soy, silk, hemp, recycled plastic, etc.? Wood from animals also makes for sustainable clothing material.
Choose Quality Over Quantity
When it comes to building your wardrobe, it’s all about planning.
Sure, buying clothes that are high in quality and more sustainable is more expensive than cheaper high-street clothing items. But you need to change your mindset regarding that to build a sustainable future for yourself and the next generations.
There is a higher chance that high-quality clothing materials, although pricey, will stay with you for a longer period. Hence, choosing quality over quantity (i.e. buying lots of cheaper, less eco-friendly clothes) should help reduce your carbon footprint!
Work on Changing Your Perspective
All this change in choosing sustainable clothing materials comes when you seriously consider how shifting from fast fashion to sustainable materials is going to impact your life.
Maybe you think that an eco-friendly wardrobe means basic-colored and oversized garments that do not offer any sort of luxury. That’s totally not true! Just because a clothing material is sustainable doesn’t mean it won’t look beautiful or stylish on you.
Sustainable fashion isn’t meant to make you compromise by choosing a clothing item that is sustainable yet looks terrible on you! More and more fashion brands are understanding the importance of sustainable fashion, which means that now you have plenty of good options to choose from!
Hopefully, this guide has now provided you with enough information to get you to adopt a sustainable fashion lifestyle. It may cost more, but it lasts longer as well as leaves little impact on the environment!
