Go Green by Growing Green
Over the past couple of decades fast fashion has taken over the way we consume clothes; with clothes pumping out so quick who could keep up. Making synthetic materials, mass production, and poorly made construction has lead fashion to being the 2nd polluted cause, not far behind oil and gas emissions.
Hemp fabric is the most sustainable alternative compared to the most common materials used in the fashion industry today.
We constantly make an environmental footprint by the actions we take each day. With more toxic waste going into our oceans, land, and air; we need a solution. Why is everyone buying so many clothes? We as consumers have the choice to buy or not. What we do and what we buy has an impact on the world. Take our fashion industry as an example; as consumers we have to know our fabrics, check the labels, buy second hand clothing, recycle and limit the amount of clothing we buy. All these factors will level off our footprint. We’re all to blame. Hyping those garments which all get made quickly in sweatshops. Ignoring the conditions that these items were made and how dangerous they are to the health of the workers. The fibers off garments constancy going into the air invading their lungs causes various illnesses. India and China are the world’s largest producer of clothing because of low labor costs and highly disciplined workforce. These places are known as ‘sweat-shops’ because of the poverty level wages and intense work conditions. In the U.S. dust, smoke, and chemicals in the air cause up to 2% of lung cancers from sweat shops.
Choosing sustainable clothing is something we can all strive to attain, in order to save our planet. Products like hemp and cotton are eco-friendly compared to man-made synthetics produced entirely from chemicals. Hemp is a high yield fiber. It produces up to 250% per acre more fiber than cotton and flax and requires about 50 percent less water per season than cotton. It’s faster for the farmers to grow hemp as its cycle is every 3 months verses cotton which takes almost a year. So hemp is able to produce double the fiber yield per hectare than cotton!
Hemp a product that requires:
- no pesticides
- crowds out weeds without herbicides
- controls erosion of the topsoil
- produces oxygen
It is a renewable resource that can be cultivated in as little 4 months and is the world’s most versatile fiber. Want a product that could keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer, also protect you from UV rays? Hemp is the answer. Pure hemp is like linen in texture but blended with other natural fibers creates fabrics with the durability of hemp and the softness of cotton or bamboo. Being processed organically (requires no chemicals) is key to being eco-friendly.
The soil is fundamental to our ecosystem. We need healthy soil to produce food but also to absorb CO2. Hemp benefits the atmosphere by removing carbon and by absorbing 60–70% of the nutrients it takes from the soil, which leads to decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. The globally massive degradation of soil is one of the main environmental issues that our planet is currently facing. It presents a major threat to global food security and also contributes to global warming. Polyester, a chemically produced man-made material that doesn’t grow in the soil, but is a cheap disposable product with a long decomposable life. It contributes to the unsustainable garbage heaps affecting our environment.
Noticeably, hemp fabric is a alternative compared to polyester. With hemp’s legalization across North America farmers have no reason not to grow hemp plants, profiting more from less land use and no competition. Fashion companies would benefit from hemp fabric because it is not only sustainable during the planting and processing stage but also produces an end product with comfort and longevity.
Clothing has clearly become disposable. Over recent decades “fast fashion” has completely changed the way we dress, and how clothing is made. As a result, we generate more and more textiles which fills the landfill. An average of 30 kg of clothing each year land in the dump. With many companies not selling their seasonal inventories, often leading to more waste. Numerous people don’t know what do to with their clothes that they’ve already worn a couple times. Less than half of all clothing gets recycled/ donated and the rest goes directly to the landfill.
Synthetic fibers such as polyester are plastic fibers, therefore non-biodegradable and can take centuries to decompose. They are used in the majority of our clothing. The fashion industry plays a major part in degrading our soil in different ways. Such as overgrazing to feed goats and sheep raised for their wool or cashmere. Massive use of chemicals to grow cotton causes soil degradation. Deforestation for wood-based fibers like rayon, viscose, and modal also play a role in this.
Every time we wash a synthetic garment, millions of threads make their way into our oceans. Scientists have noticed organisms that ingest these microfibers, eaten by small fish which are later eaten by bigger fish causing them to get sick and die. We could be eating fish that have been poised by our negligence.
Very few luxury brands have pursued using more environmentally friendly fabrics, ”Rick Owens‘ experimentation with hemp in tailored pieces for Fall/Winter 2011 and Fall/Winter 2018 was a great example. “A lot of recent developments for upcoming seasons have been focusing on trying to use hemp in different structures and mixed with other natural or more precious fibers like silk,” Jessica Kipp, Head of Research Materials for Rick Owens, tells HYPEBEAST. “This is partly due to hemp being a more sustainable choice compared to cotton or linen, but also because of its raw look and hand that creates a unique image and touch.”
Chemicals are used during fiber production, dyeing, bleaching, and wet processing of each of our garments. The heavy use of pesticides in cotton farming is causing diseases and premature death among cotton farmers, along with massive freshwater/ ocean water pollution and soil degradation.
We recycle or donate only 15 percent of our used clothing. The rest about 11 million tons each year go into landfills, giving textiles one of the poorest recycling rates of any reusable material. Choosing to go to second hand stores will prolong lifespans and clean up our land fills. You can even save money by re-purposing clothing with a little imagination. As consumers we don’t need to keep up with all the latest trends, thinking about how many garments we’ll go through in our life time.
We can work together; buy quality not quantity and donate or re-purpose more. With sustainable fabrics, fashion designers need to step up their quality to better the environment by choosing fabrics that can make a difference; rather than donating afterwards to a helpless clause.
