Sustainable or Just Fashionable?

Is that used, or previovsly owned? On a whim I stopped at the Salvation Army store today. Two of the items still had store stickers on them, the other three looked like they were used maybe twice. Retail value was perhaps $120 +, but cost me with tax $25.43, or about the price of the jeans alone.

People really have to want to do this, both recycle and purchase these items. Not a problem here in the second poorest county in New York State. There are drop boxes everywhere, including at the town transfer station, where all trash has a specific destination depending on the material. The problem and the solution are one and the same: sorting it all out. I know the metalworking industry does this fairly well. Phosphor bronze does not get put in with the brass, etc..

Is it a fad, like those colorful oval rag rugs that so fascinated me as a two year old? Would the consumer be just as happy with a tag that said; This product has been made with 60% New and 40% Sanitized Recycled Material? That used to be the case.

Maybe this depression will teach us the cost of under-utilized resources, both human and material.

It's an interesting thing about fashion... It is almost invariably superficial, and this extends to 'fashionable' activities as well as clothing or hairstyles...

This is particularly irritating in the world of 'sustainability' where, for example, typically at just about the moment a new sustainable material becomes fashionable it also ceases to be truly sustainable. My current favorite is the trend of constructing things (dishes, clothes, floors, you name it...) from bamboo because bamboo grows like a weed and is so very sustainable, of course somehow we fail to notice that the bamboo forests are dwindling to the point of being endanger of extinction and threatening to take several species of animals with it. Here is a brief article confirming that Bamboo is in trouble, I just Googled bamboo forest extinction and found myself awash in links, I chose this one because it is short and sweet...(http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=963).

I believe that this is because modern fashion and trends are driven by the media which is a stack of half truths and sound bites designed to make money for someone (who probably has stock in the multi-billion dollar bamboo industry if they're smart)

Perhaps if we were all actually informed rather than convincing ourselves of just how knowledgeable we are because we watch cable news and read the Enquirer... but who am I kidding

so now it's bamboo. everything fails when it's scaled up. 'green alternative' .. rush over here everybody.. oh, now it's bad, ... over here for the corn husk clothing or whatever fad is next.. we're like the passengers on the Titanic or some such barge, stampeding from starboard to port until... it tips again....

Great observation! The best thing that can happen for bamboo is for it to lose its "cool."

Here in Scotland, you can buy clothing made entirely from recycled polymers. Then there are benches and bollards made from recycled carrier bags.

Now the government are trying to stop the use of carrier bags by making stores charge for them. The recycling companies will need to start buying new, or go out of business!

On labels, there are often "other materials" or "mixed materials" in a few % - these are usually recycled offcuts which have not been separated first.

Many charities have collection banks at supermarkets, though these are usually overflowing which suggests that the general population tries to recycle more than can currently be coped with. It may be that those with the money to discard at will are the ones who insist on new materials, and those who would buy recycled cannot afford to, or buy much less in order to be as sustainable as possible.

According to my wife I never throw anything away including my clothes. I guess she has a point. I still have a t-shirt from when I graduated high school that has all the names of the students in the class printed on it. I graduated in 1982. But I even wore it to my last class reunion BBQ. Everyone thought I had a new one printed but I didn't. I wear jeans to work until they get a hole, then I wear them while working around the house until the hole gets to big then I turn them into shorts. After that they turn into rags. But I believe I'm a little unusual compared to most North Americans. Then I have friends that don't seem to wear anything twice & wouldn't be caught dead wearing anything out of fashion.

As far as the resale shops go. I remember as a kid there being clothing bins everywhere then they disappeared now they are slowly coming back. The products the stores carry have really improved over the past few years. I also find brand new clothes with tags still on them there. Don't know if this is from private donations or a company donated them when they switched products. So even though I very seldom buy new clothes when I do I shop these types of stores first. About the only thing I have to buy brand new are my jeans and thats because of my weird dimensions (34 waist x 39 Inseam).

I see no reason for the government to get involved, other than to promote the recycling of used clothing. They don't need more regulation they just need a better informed public.

Textiles have a bearing on the following factors ,that this issue of disposability/conversions arise out of.

1]Growth rates ,misfitting sizes

2]Torn away,not worth continuing wear anymore.

3]So called fashion sentiments that sentimental rejections/discarding.

4]It is noted that even old goods are discarded offshores[helping clothless]

5]Textiles, a limitless undefined choice of market products

6]Disposability,convertabilty,recycling by plastic fusions,bio degradability issues,finish coationgs,complex natural/synthetic blends.

7]All synthetic products,just apart from this textiles viz-packing materials,wrappers,containers are posing ecological issues DISPOSAL ISSUES.

8]As regard to volumes of washings and storage it even cals for inventory control of clothes at homes

Well sustainability has to address all these issues.

Possible approaches could be a complex outlook of introducing ecology in fashion and textile trends,useful conversion possibilities of textile wastes,fillings,composites,reinforcements,strategic handling,even inception in building materials,sun shades.No doubt plenty of option are possible.

Quite a new menace,but on clearcut conversion research, sustainability is not an impossibility.

Government regulation of every pet peeve that an individual can think of is a sure lead to socialism. In this Socialistic society we would not have to worry about the discarded clothing. Why would we need to buy new clothing. Until we wore out the ones we are wearing only thing that would be available would be the same. No need for the fashion industry the government is going to design our new utilitarian garments and manufacture them too. This the world we want to live in? No freedom of choice. No incentive to design and create.

Stagnation, Engineers beware.

Do not regulate find a use for the unwanted materials no matter what they are and put a value on it so there is some compensation for the individual so there is a desire to recycle. In my youth the soda came in glass bottles there was a deposit on them. So you never seen them scattered around the road side. Children collected them for the deposit. I see as I look at the plastic bottle in front of me that some of the local governments see the wisdom to put a deposit on the bottles.

The Salvation Army does not put every garment they receive on the rack for resale. They are sorted thru and those that don't have resale value are baled and sold to make felt from.

recycling is great, but because everybody is lazy they all have the "what difference can one person make?" mentality. it sucks, but without imposing laws it will always be the same. heres an easier way to be environmentally friendly:

http://www.greenworks-energy.co.uk/

solar panels, wind turbines, just about everything you could ever want.