How Can We Be More Sustainable? Buying Vintage and Recycled Clothes Can Reduce Your Carbon Footprint.

How Can We Be More Sustainable? Buying Vintage and Recycled Clothes Can Reduce Your Carbon Footprint.

Buying vintage clothing, especially at an affordable price from an ethical brand, is a fantastic way to start reducing our environmental impact. Fast fashion is one of the biggest criminals in terms of global pollution, and unnecessary waste. As they continue to dominate our highstreets, it’s important we look at the alternatives for higher-quality clothing from trusted and accessible sources.

According to Mckinsey and Company, in 2014 the public bought twice as much clothing as in 2000 – but only kept most of it for half as long. The average person buys 68 new garments a year, 5 times that of 40 years ago. Fashion brands have expanded from 2-3 seasons of clothing each year to up to 23 seasons of clothing each year – and the high street shops are some of the worst offenders, with H&M pumping out on average 11 seasons every 12 months.

The fashion industry is huge, ever growing, and has a lot to answer for. The levels of waste produced by the making and selling of all these clothes is monumental, unsustainable, and answers for 10% of global carbon emissions.

Here are five significant ways we think you can start to make ethical fashion choices, without bleeding your bank account dry:

1. Being aware of the impact of your fashion choices.
2. Choosing vintage and preworn clothing.
3. Looking for recycled clothing, ethically produced with a reduced carbon footprint.
4. Remodelling old clothing, so that it can be reworn.
5. Buying less but buying better quality.

As we all ask ourselves: how can we be more sustainable, we must look at our fashion choices to make a significant personal difference. Vintage clothing, recycled clothing, and buying pre-worn is a fantastic way to start reducing our carbon footprint. We can be more sustainable by being aware of the environmental impact of our purchases and opting for fashion that aims to cut down on waste, carbon emissions, and lasts for a long time. Reusing, rewearing and recycling clothes are some of the best ways to do that.

The reality is clothes will always wear out. You can’t go the rest of your life without buying anything new for your wardrobe. So how do we shop for clothes (and later sell them) in a sustainable way that is accessible to as many people as possible?

How To Rewear Clothing

Vintage is back, baby, and it’s here to stay.

According to WRAP UK, every year around £140 Million worth of used clothes end up in landfill.

That’s an estimated amount of 350,000 tonnes.

That’s why one of the best ways we can be more sustainable is by buying vintage and pre-worn clothing. – Vintage clothes have already been created, have been worn lovingly by someone else before you, and will continue to be worn for years to come. Buying pre-loved clothing reduces the number of garments going to landfill and takes the demand away from unsustainable practices that produce a tenth of the worlds carbon emissions.

And now, vintage is more fashionable than ever. Skinny jeans are out, and comfortable (but stylish) slim and straight legged soft fashion is back. Retro branding, big logos, bright jumpers and ethical choices are the way forward.

This Retro Adidas sweater, bought from a vintage store in the North East, is a fantastic example. With a lifespan of at least 10 years, it has outlasted many fast fashion brands, is still in fantastic condition and reduced the demand for new products.

Buying from vintage clothing sites, such as ourselves, removes the new production line (And the possibility of over-production) from the sales equation. It supports a small business, we get use out of the clothes for longer, we send less to landfill - and as more of us are choose vintage over new, and are representing sustainable choices in everyday life, we encourage others to do the same.

Rewearing Natural Fibres

If you want to go one step further, buying any clothes made from 100% natural fibres, and all one fibre, is a fantastic way to start reducing your footprint and be more sustainable.

Take wool, for example. Wool clothing lasts longer and is produced using a much more sustainable and ethical process than nylon fabrics.  Renewable and reusable, wool stays cleaner longer and needs washing less regularly than its man-made counterparts.

If we have a wardrobe full of clothing that we need to wash less regularly, we’re already on track to reducing our carbon footprint and being more sustainable. According to estimates by Mkinsey and Company, washing and drying one kilogram of clothing over its life cycle can create up to eleven kilograms of greenhouse gases.

90s Rainbow Patterned Chunky Fleece

 When you buy 100% natural fibre clothing, you’re investing in breathable and biodegradable clothing that, if looked after properly, will withstand years of wear without needing to be thrown out. It’ll save you money, be a more sustainable and environmentally friendly choice, and will keep your wardrobe looking fresh without needing to buy new clothes each season.

When checking out vintage clothing shops and their stock, keep an eye out for these gems. Stylish, fashionable and warm to wear, 100% wool or 100% cotton clothes are a fantastic addition to your wardrobe.

Vintage clothing is automatically a more sustainable and ethical choice. But looking for high-quality, stylish pieces that you can keep, and wear, for years also makes an impact on your carbon footprint, as it tends to wear better, is easier to keep looking brand new, and doesn’t need replacing as soon.

Making Vintage Accessible

It’s important to understand that sometimes vintage fashion can be unaffordable for those with a smaller disposable income.

When fast fashion can be produced so cheap, it is difficult for smaller clothing companies to compete.

Not only that, but in recent years we have seen a more pronounced trend of vintage pieces being bought at a reasonable price and being resold online for far higher. This takes the potential for sustainable and stylish choices out of the hands of those that are unable to justify £40 upwards for a jumper and damages the vintage and sustainable clothing community as a whole.

This is why Arkid Vintage sells clothes at an affordable price – and why, if you’re looking to do your bit for sustainability, you should also always try to resell vintage and second-hand clothing at a reasonable and lower price.

Making the vintage market more accessible for everyone is a way that we, as a community, can do our bit to be more sustainable and drive ethical choices to reduce our collective carbon footprint. It also opens the door to higher-quality and long-lasting clothing for people and families that otherwise might have had no choice but to shop fast fashion.

We should look to making all sustainable clothing – whether it is vintage, recycled and reworked- more affordable for the masses. It needs to be easily accessible, welcoming and at reasonable prices to appeal to everyone. Ultimately, this will make a significant difference to our collective carbon footprint. Becoming more inclusive, and improving our availability to everyone, no matter their income, is the only way we can continue to reduce and improve the societal expectation of fast fashion brands filling the Highstreet.

How To Recycle Clothing

As a broader understanding of the environmental impact of fashion spreads through the industry, we’re seeing a huge increase in affordable recycled clothing.

We sell our own sustainable t-shirt, with 90% less carbon emissions for every t-shirt produced. If you’re looking for something new, replenishing a worn wardrobe, or wanting to represent your anti-fast fashion views, choosing a recycled and ethical t-shirt is a much better option than buying from a big-name brand.

Synthetic clothing can now be made using recycled plastic.
There’s not much difference in regards to texture between garments made using recycled plastic, and garments made the ‘usual’ way, but recycling plastics is proven to reduce air, water and land pollution.

 In other words, for the same quality of product, you can buy something that has had significantly less impact on the environment.

Recycled plastic clothing usually takes a discarded object, most notoriously plastic bottles (In the US alone, more than 60 million bottles end up in landfill every day) and produces something trendy and beautiful with a fraction of the carbon emissions. Even if we take into account the energy needed to create a recycled product, it is still much less harmful than creating a product from new – and removes the waste, one of the most damaging aspects of the fashion industry.

New polyester is created using a combination of coal, ethylene (Which comes from petroleum), air and water, which are formed from a chemical reaction under extremely high temperature conditions. The energy required to complete this process is almost unimaginable and relies on considerably more natural resources than recycled.

Recycled polyester is made from recycled plastic, cutting out the need for coal and petroleum. It takes plastic from landfills, again removing a wasteful product that damages the planet, and (using fewer natural resources and energy than virgin materials) turns them into something useful again.

Whilst buying vintage will always have less environmental impact than buying anything new, recycled clothing is the way to replenish your wardrobe with fresh garments without sacrificing your values. (And we think our sustainable shirt looks pretty dope, too!)

Arkid Vintage Acid Washed Black 90s Tee.

How To Reuse Clothing

Reused and reworked clothing has really hit the market in the last 5 years and is something you can do yourself from the comfort of your own home.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for, or have old clothing that needs updating, taking the time to cut and sew a new garment is a much more affordable and sustainable answer to fast fashion. You can also take vintage pieces, and rework them into something closer fitting, or more ‘unique’.

One of the fantastic things about reusing old clothing to create a new look is that it opens the door to complete individuality, customised and tailored to specific style requirements and comfort choices.

This reworked jumper took a retro fleece, cropped and cinched at the waist, and made an entirely new product. Both stylish and reused, it is one of the best ways we can be more sustainable.

Reworked clothing is also a more direct way of recycling garments and, done from the comfort of your own home, will have an extremely limited carbon footprint. Like choosing vintage, you remove the production process that all fast fashion clothes must go through – instead, supporting a sustainable practise that will see clothes worn for years.

When the amount we throw away and dispose of in landfill is ever increasing as a society, finding alternatives that will extend the life of products is the most ethical choice we can make. Our compulsive buying habits have become so pronounced they actually have a name; ‘oniomania’, meaning a shopping addiction. Remove the buying aspect, and not only are you saving money – but you’re saving the planet too.

One of the easiest ways we can be more sustainable in everyday life is by making conscious fashion purchases. By buying vintage and recycled clothes, we can reduce our carbon footprint and waste. The process is more ethical, more likely to support small businesses, and is accessible for everyone. We’re not saying you have to wear the same pair of jeans for the rest of your life, but by choosing a second-hand vintage sweater over a fast fashion hoodie, you’re choosing sustainability over high-emission, high-waste production methods. Vintage, recycled and reworked is the way forward, and is now more fashionable than ever

- Christine Candeland (https://christinecandeland.wordpress.com/)