Okay then! So in the blog entry I promised you all that I would find out different ways that I can use and re-use old clothing instead of discarding it to end up rotting in some landfill completely useless. I also mentioned that I would put up some research, but I didn’t specify what. Well, I’ve done research on quite a few different things, so here we go.

One problem that has irked me this year is that a lot of the shirts I own are mysteriously sprouting tiny little rips, like the fibers came loose and they simple unraveled, forming an unsightly tiny hole. They are enough to make me gnash my teeth at the sight of them. I wanted to figure out ways to prevent them, and over all, make clothing last longer so I can get more wear out of them. Something I’m going to need to know if I’m planning on keeping what I own for as long as possible. I know that clothing doesn’t last forever, but I do know full well that they are at least supposed to last a lot longer than a month before popping a hole!

One of the reasons I would buy clothing like marked down tees was to save money, but I never really thought about all the money I could be saving if I took better care of what I had so I wouldn’t have excuses to buy more. Deep thinking right? Well I’ve done some reading around from various sources and I’d like to share with all of you some basic ways to give your clothing a longer life-span, so like me, you can implement them right away! If you already know some of these tips, then keep on keeping on!

Do not put cotton clothing in the dryer unless it clearly states it is pre-shrunk!

How many times have you pulled out the favorite sweater or the “they fit perfectly” jeans and as soon as you put them on, it feels like you exploded? I have, enough to put them on and look like a pole jumper warming up for a jump to try to get them feeling comfortable on me again. I know that can’t be good for its closet life, being constantly shrunken and stretched, shrunken and stretched over and over again every time it’s washed and dried. Well, I’ve decided to erect a clothes line in my sunroom. It gets a nice breeze and at the same time it won’t be hit directly by the sun, so the colors won’t fade. This is actually a change I’m looking forward to, I’m really tired of having to “work-out” my clothes to get them fitting right again and I’m sure this will save a ton of electricity, since the dryer is a monster, and apparently, it’s the second biggest energy consumer in the household! Yikes.

Don’t rip out price tags, use scissors.

I know this one seems kind of silly, but I think it deserves to be mentioned. When I bring something new home, I usually stick it in my closet, and when I’m getting dressed in the morning, I rip it out in a hurry. I didn’t really think about how it could lead to holes in the future, I just wanted to wear it and wear it now. This will be a simple fix, and probably the easiest tip to follow.

Use baking soda and hot water to brighten white clothes instead of bleach.
This one was a shocker, since I though bleach was the only thing you could use to get white clothes looking, well, white again. The reasoning behind this is simple. Bleach isn’t good for your clothes, or the environment. Understandably bleach is corrosive, and will eat your clothes over time, gradually shorting its wear time with every wash. I found a website called Scorecard, ( http://scorecard.org/ ) an informational data base on all kinds of pollutants inside and outside the household. According to Scorecard, bleach is “deemed to be a high risk environmentally and a slight to moderate risk in the workplace.” Even though it breaks down into naturally occurring substances, like oxygen, salt, and water, it also breaks down into a chemical called AOX, or “absorbable organic halides,” which has been proven to be toxic to sea-life, and that’s where most of it ends up; in the water. I think we can all go without bleach, seeing as there are so many alternatives that do just as good with cleaning and disinfecting.

As soon as your clothing is out of the dryer, (or washer in case of using a clothes line) check for any damage, like missing buttons, rips or holes. The faster they can be mended, the better.

This is pretty self explanatory, since we all know that if we let a harmless rip go unattended to it can lead to a huge hole later on due to fraying of the material. I guess having buttons on hand would be handy! And as stated in another fellow student’s blog, so would learning how to mend. :)

Okay so hopefully these will prove to be useful, money saving, and green for myself and whoever wants to practice these tips. Now I’ll go into the more grim part of my research. How the materials that we ware on our bodies and their manufacture are destroying our beautiful planet. Clothing production essentially hurts the environment at every stage; from growing cotton, through burning energy to make and transport them, to disposing of them in landfill waste dumps. For example I found out about this once massive body of water called the Aral Sea, located near Kazakhstan, had actually been drained nearly to the point of no return due to the cotton industry. Gradually the water level fell as they diverted the resource into irrigation, and returned to the water the toxic pesticide runoff, turning what was left of the water, a sickening green hue. It was said to be one of the largest man made ecological disasters of all time, and to this day, they are trying to recover what they once had with little luck. This was all caused by the increasing demand for clothing, which caused a need to farm fast-growing cotton that needed much more water than a desert region could sustain. Everything is interconnected. It’s these connections that are becoming more and more apparent to me. The effects of clothing waste and clothing demand seem so invisible to us, but this particular effect, can be seen from space.

I’ll move on to a lighter subject to announce that I’ve found some really useful ways to reuse the more “junky” clothes that I have, like a pair of jeans that have been worn past any hope of repairs, with an enormous rip, that’s more like a fissure in the front, from being worn with a hole too long then washed and dried… (Had I known of the tips above I probably would still be able to wear them…) I cut up pieces of it and I’ve been using it instead of paper towels in the kitchen, and wow… I haven’t had to even open a single pack of paper towel since I’ve been using the jeans instead. It’s pretty much the “everything” cleaner, and most importantly, it was free! I’m using an old polo as a rag for the bathroom, and a ripped undershirt is going to be material for one of my projects. Whatever I’m not going to use right away will be saved for a rainy day, -not- thrown away. :P Getting over the stigma of “oh god I used to wear this and now I’m rubbing it all over the sink” wasn’t too hard either. Re-using really is useful and I definitely can get used to it!!

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