Composting your intimate clothing? Let’s look at fashion sustainably!!

Composting your intimate clothing? Let’s look at fashion sustainably!!

What is Sustainable Fashion?

Sustainable Fashion

As per Wikipedia, “Sustainable fashion” is a term describing products, processes, activities, and actors aiming to achieve a carbon-neutral fashion industry, built on equality, social justice, animal welfare, and ecological integrity. Sustainable fashion concerns more than addressing fashion textiles or products

Sustainable fashion advocates believe the fashion industry can pursue profit and growth while also producing new value for society and the global economy. Sustainable fashion creates thriving ecosystems and communities. The movement believes clothing firms should improve environmentally, socially, and ethically. This includes raising the value of local produce and products, prolonging the lifecycle of materials, boosting the value of timeless clothing, minimising waste, and reducing production and consumption’s environmental impact. Promoting the “green consumer” can help the company obtain greater support and a wider following.

Tackling fast fashion with compostable clothing: –

Compostable clothing is made from 100% compostable materials, which usually means plastic-free clothing made from organic natural fibres, and is also free from toxic dyes, finishes, and chemicals.

Composting recycles organic matter, including food scraps and leaves, into fertiliser. Composting is an aerobic process; thus, it doesn’t produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

However, it is not sufficient for the fabric to simply be produced from natural fibres to compost it. Examples of natural fibres are cotton, silk, and wool. Many different brands apply so-called forever chemicals to their garments to make them watertight, stain-resistant, and wrinkle-resistant, respectively.

Would you like to compost your intimates?

Many apparel businesses are turning to resale schemes to reduce fashion’s waste problem. When underwear is past its prime, companies that create intimates dump it, creating billions of pounds of textile waste.

According to Kent, a company based in Los Angeles, the company has been selling a line of “fully compostable” underwear made from 100% Pima cotton for the past two years. Pima cotton is known to have longer fibres and to last longer than traditional cotton blends. Kent says that the company has been selling this line of “fully compostable” underwear. Kent underpants can be composted or mailed back to the manufacturer, which works with a Southern California partner to turn them into the soil.

Most intimates come from “fossil fuel-based non-renewable resources which are not recyclable at all. The technology doesn’t exist.” The problem is particularly acute for women’s underwear, which usually has elastic fibres throughout, whereas men’s boxers often have an elastic band that’s easier to remove. Therefore, underwear and other stretchy clothing that is brought into textile recycling facilities are rarely shredded; rather, these items are reused as padding in goods such as punching bags, automobile seats, and pet beds.

Most women’s underwear contains polyester and nylon, cheap alternatives to cotton. Some intimates contain high quantities of BPA and PFAS, which can cause endocrine disruption and prostate and breast cancers. Bra recycling is harder than underwear. Because bras include microscopic parts of plastic and metal, disassembling them is a labour-intensive and expensive operation. Polyurethane padding isn’t recyclable.

What about Second-hand Bras?

Second-hand bras do sell. There is a global market for it. These are sold through, for example like “take-back programs” that send discarded bras to organizations working to help sex trafficking victims, migrants, refugees etc.

Bras are more hygienic and durable than underwear. Improving intimates’ recyclability will require new materials and disposal procedures but focusing on durability may be the best way to keep them out of landfills.

People in general don’t want to replace such items, they only replace them when they feel like their condition has gone bad and they can’t wear them any longer. I think, there must be a major focus on “durability “than finding recycling solutions or disposal systems.

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