How many items are in your wardrobe? According to the Hot or Cool Institute, an environmental think tank in Berlin, a sustainable wardrobe in a G20 country with four seasons is 85 items. This includes work and casual wear, coats and shoes, athletic wear and formal wear, but does not include underwear and accessories. The reason for this? The world needs to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if we are going to meet the 1.5 C target of the Paris Agreement. Reducing clothing consumption is one big way that you can make an impact. Other recommendations of the Hot or Cool Institute’s report are that we avoid excessive laundering, shopping on impulse, and extend garment life through mending and buying second hand or swapping. These days, we buy 10 items, while our grandparents bought 2!

With a little mental math, I have concluded that my wardrobe is four times this size, and most of it is athletic wear for yoga and outdoor pursuits! (The irony of having yoga wear as the biggest chunk of my wardrobe is not lost on me.)

The average North American buys 37 kilograms of clothing per year, and Ontarians generate 500 million kilograms of textile waste per year. A large proportion of this waste could be recycled, but ends up in landfill instead, much of it in the Global South, where it is burned or leaches into earth and water. For an overview of this problem, read “The Aftermath of Fast Fashion.” The textile industry produces 2-8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, more than all international flights and global shipping combined. Much like plastic recycling, we may hope that when we give items to Goodwill and other organizations that they will be re-used, but huge volumes of clothing gets shipped to the global south to landfill sites. The clothing, made of synthetic materials, fails to decompose, and accumulates for hundreds of years.

So how do we get to this 85 item or less wardrobe? Here are some tips to help you:

Use the Fashion Industry 7R’s

The 7 R’s of the fashion industry are:

• Reduce
• Re-use
• Recyle
• Re-purpose
• Repair
• Rent
• Resell
• Re-cycle again

Take Note of What You Wear Regularly

Try to build your wardrobe around a few quality staple pieces that you love. You may pay more for these pieces, but in most cases, the higher quality means that they will last longer, or can be swapped or given a second or third life in someone else’s wardrobe.

Avoid Impulse Shopping

The fashion industry is focused on influencing you to buy more, not less. Many of us are searching for a new article of clothing to make us feel better, but that hit of happiness is short lived. Watch your exposure to social media and advertising, all urging us to consume more.

Nix Fast Fashion

Rather than buying 6 inexpensive fast fashion items, make a careful choice of a classic garment that will be used many times and will stand up to the test of wear. Examine the stitching to make sure it is solidly stitched and in some cases double and triple stitched. Look for extra buttons in the inside, which may be a sign of better quality. Reliable zippers are usually made of metal, not plastic; look for a YKK zipper. Feel the material and check the thickness; in many cases poor quality, thin fabrics are used which can degrade after only a few uses. Mom used to run her fingers over fabric to get a feel for the quality. Now I find myself doing the same!

Green Venture is currently offering a youth stewardship program in Hamilton called “A Future Without Fast Fashion“.

Buy Sustainable Brands

Be choosy about what brands make it into your closet. Sustainable brands provide a living wage, better working conditions, create less pollution, and use less water and chemicals. Fabrics in sustainable brands may include organic cotton, recycled cotton, wood cellulose and locally made fabrics. Avoid buying products of the fossil fuel industry, which produce more greenhouse gases. Examples of these include nylon, polyester, acrylic and spandex. Fashion manufacturers love to use these fabrics because they are inexpensive. My Green Closet has an extensive list of sustainable brands by category.

“Do I really need this?”

When you are tempted to buy a new item, ask yourself: “do I really need this?” Chances are that you already have an item like this in your closet, and are mostly doing it out of want, not need. I am reminded of this when I look at the number of fleece items in my closet. There is clearly work to be done here.

Don’t Throw It Out! Recycle It Where It Will be Used

If you no longer have a use for an item in your closet, don’t throw it out. See if you could re-purpose it, give it away, or resell it. Drop items off at shelters where they will go directly to people in need. Many shelters have areas that give used items like clothing, boots and coats to their clients.Check out your local Buy Nothing group on Facebook. You’d be surprised at how much gets recycled in this way. If you do have to throw it out, see if you can find your local fabric recycling depot. In most cases, your blue box does not take fabric items, but a depot will. Learn how to repair your items, or take them to your local stitch-it shop. Some organizations regularly host clothing swaps and repair cafes, where volunteers will repair your socks, stitch your leather, or stitch tears for you!

Buy Second Hand, Swap and Rent

Rather than buying new items, buy second hand, or swap or rent clothes. Renting is especially useful for clothing such as maternity wear, or dressy items that you may only wear once. Don’t fall for that second hand phenomenon where you buy more items because the price is lower! I have been guilty of this in the past.

Use the “1 In, 1 Out Rule”

Once you have gotten your wardrobe into shape and have given away items that you don’t use or need, use the “1 in, 1 out rule”. If you acquire a new item, can you give away or re-purpose another item to keep your wardrobe at that sustainable number? In this way, you can satisfy your desire to update your wardrobe with new items while still being sustainable.

Wash Less Often!

The other impact of clothing is the energy costs used to wash it. Use an efficient washing machine, do full loads, wear items more than once before you wash them. Use green detergent, cold water, and line dry your clothes whenever possible. Avoid dry cleaning, as it uses perchloroethylene, which is harmful to your health. I can remember being horrified as a teenager that mom would not wash her clothes every time she wore them, but now I realize she was ahead of the curve.

If we all consumed 30 per cent less clothing, the world would be in a better place. Now I’m going to my closet to do some planning for what I can give away. Since I’ve written this article, I’ve managed to give away a good chunk of the items that were idling in my closet. It feels great to give these clothes another life!

---