Challenge – Environmental Impact of Your Clothing

Challenge – Environmental Impact of Your Clothing

Don’t be alarmed after reading that headline… I’m not going to suggest you abandon clothing for a naturist lifestyle…

As part of my background research for my thesis work, I’ve been doing a LOT of reading lately. Considering that my work here at ABI is largely concerned with raw materials used in brewing, this reading has mostly been related to the water use of agricultural crops. What most often comes to mind when one thinks of “agriculture”? I would wager that food production is likely high on that list. What is often not considered, however, is agricultural production of other raw materials such as cotton. Cotton production currently accounts for 2.5% of agricultural land that’s cultivated worldwide, a fairly small amount in the grand scheme of global agriculture. Because of the selective breeding of cotton plants that yield more usable fiber but are less resistant to pests and disease, nearly 25% of all agricultural pesticide use pertains to cotton production. A good TED talk about this can be viewed here.

In India, the world’s second highest cotton producing nation (behind China) the life expectancy of cotton-field workers is 43 years. Compared to the national life expectancy in India of 61, the life expectancy of a cotton worker is reduced by a THIRD due to unsafe working conditions and health hazards related to chemical exposure and dangerous equipment use.

Thankfully there are some companies trying to address the issues surrounding cotton production, least of which is iconic Levi Strauss & Co. who conducted a Life Cycle Analysis of their popular 501 series jeans back in 2007. They concluded that over 90% of the water use throughout the life of a pair of jeans came from the production of the cotton itself and a large proportion of the remainder was used in the consumer care process. LS & Co. sourced 12% of their global cotton in 2015 from BCI sources- BCI being the Better Cotton Initiative which is a collaborative initiative between apparel companies and the World Wildlife Fund to push technologies that allow for reduced water and chemical inputs in cotton production. Their aim is to source 95% of their cotton through BCI suppliers by 2020.

Patagonia is another company who is aiming to reduce the environmental impact of their apparel products through their Common Threads Initiative which aims to reduce consumption of raw materials through repair of damaged goods and reuse of materials. Those are the two “R’s” that are often forgotten in the slogan we all learned as kids “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. Often today the first two steps are skipped, when they can have the most significant impact on reducing raw material use! Programs like this aim to move towards a “circular economy” model wherein the idea of waste is minimized as much as possible.

In their LCA, Levi Strauss & Co. found that a pair of their 501 Jeans consumes “3,781 liters of water in its full life cycle – from growing cotton, through manufacturing, consumer care at home and end of life disposal”. To put that into perspective for my friends in the U.S. that is equivalent to 998.8 gallons of water, or 108 days of domestic water use for the average person living in Sub-Saharan Africa (35L per day). Levi’s LCA concluded that by washing a garment once every 10 uses, as opposed to every 2 uses could reduce water use, climate change impact and energy consumption by 80%.

So why am I telling you this?

I’ve decided to conduct a little experiment and challenge for myself and anyone else who wants to give it a shot…

In the spirit of supporting the circular economy and the values of efficiency and lower resource use I am going to attempt to go six months without buying any NEW clothing (aside from undergarments!). I will still be allowed to buy used clothing from second-hand shops and companies that have recycling/repair programs, but the emphasis will be to only buy products that minimize new raw material use. I think that this will be an interesting challenge given that I will be making a transition from a full-time university student back into the working world, and as such I may be required to update my wardrobe for wherever I end up being employed. I am looking forward to the challenge of figuring out where to source clothes from, especially as someone who has trouble finding clothes that properly fit, even when new!

I will begin this challenge officially on the 21st of June, 2017 and will conclude on December 21st so that I have a varied range of weather and climatic conditions to deal with.

So there it is, my challenge for myself and anyone else who wishes to accept it in one form or another. The point is not to deprive myself or anyone else, but to search for ways to easily reduce impact and support reuse and recycling of materials. Who knows, I might save a little bit of money as well!

 

Those looking for further reading on the circular economy and consumer goods check out these links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_economy

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965261300382X

http://waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/Report18.pdf

 

Until next time, cheers from Belgium!