Posts Tagged ‘CO2’
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#1 Green Britain day - 5 easy steps for reducing your fashion footprint
2 million tonnes of clothes are bought in the UK every year, of which 1.2 million tonnes is dumped in landfill sites! The average Brit throws away 30kg of clothing and textiles which is very much down to the availability of cheap throwaway fashion.
So what’s the problem?In the UK the clothing and textiles sector was responsible for:
~3.1 million tonnes of GHG emissions
~1.5-2.0 million tonnes of waste
70 million tonnes of water waste
10 x more energy than producing steel or glassAlso, when these materials end up in landfill, some synthetic materials don’t decompose and some which do degrade release methane which is 21 x more powerful than CO2.
If everyone in the UK bought one reclaimed woollen garment a year, it would save an average of 371 million gallons of water – the average UK reservoir holds about 300 gallons!
5 easy steps for reducing your fashion footprint…
1. Choose eco labels - many shops have organic clothing, green, Fairtrade collections and upcycled collections which use old fabrics to create new fashion. There are also many UK based designers supporting local businesses and which save energy by being UK-made, e.g. People Tree, Beyond Skin and Izzy Lane.
2. Take your old clothes to one of the 6,000 recycling banks in the UK – this is easy yet only 25% of the banks are being used to their full capacity and only 16% of clothes are recycled! The clothes are taken to homeless, charity shops or sold in developing countries.
3. Shop in charity shops – Fed up of seeing everyone wearing the same dress as you? Full of vintage glamour at bargain prices, charity shops are ideal for that unique piece that will set you apart - and you will be raising money for charity! Over 70% of the world’s population uses second hand clothes so why not do it!?
4. Swapping and swishing –host your own party or swap online from one of the many websites out there.TheBigWardrobe has 30,000 members and pieces from Stella McCartney, Marc Jacobs and Topshop.
5. Customise your wardrobe – as Vivienne Westwood advised everyone watching her on Jonathon Ross:
“Do it yourself, take the tablecloth if its beautiful… put things together yourself, don’t spend money, just take what you can find, take your old things and keep on wearing them, don’t buy much fashion but if you do buy it, choose really well, wear it for a long time until it drops of your back and it will get more wonderful…forget buying all of these new clothes…buy less and choose well”
It is very easy to associate eco fashion with “hippies” however this shouldn’t be the case. London fashion week saw designers such as Izzy Lane and Amana take part in the “Estethica” initiative which is now in its 7th season.
The government have also outlined a sustainable clothing roadmap which is a voluntary clothing industry initiative to improve the environmental and ethical performance of clothing to hopefully make green fashion choices second-nature.
Read #2 Green Britain Day- 6 easy steps to reduce your travel footprintRead #3 Green Britain Day- 4 easy steps to reduce your food footprint
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Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air Link
Here is a link to a very important book, (free and online - thats not why it is important) it is written by David Mackay - a very clever chap, a physicist from Cambridge University who also dabbles in Energy and Sustainability issues, with relation to the UK, he is also an advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)
I recommend it to anyone - in the book are his thoughts on Energy and Sustainability - Included are some practical steps to reducing the amount of energy you use personally… I confess to not having read the whole thing, yet, as I have a reading list the size of a bus.
My day job is in local government which taught me a little how UK policy works, I am interested in how the Climate Squad fits into the UK Decarbonisation agenda, particularly how we are contributing to CO2 reduction target of 34% overall in the UK by 2020.
The long term target of 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050.
At a recent talk about Copenhagen, I heard that, at COP15 the real negotiations did not start until Friday 3am, and then with only 30ish Countries fleshing out the deal, in fact Ed Miliband suggested that talks of these types need smaller groups, representatives in order to reach agreement.
There are many issues with the negotiations that have taken place, my mind is not made up, and I feel it will take some time to realise what the effects (if any) of the Accord are, is it enough of a start to be worthwhile or a complete failure, at a very recent DECC event (to welcome home Ed Miliband and the UK delegation) there were very mixed feelings, some criticised the UK others praised it, and the same has been said of the hosts, whatever the case, I am sure this is just the beginnning, after all we have upcoming events in Bonn (early 2010) and MEX16 to look forward to in 2010.
Alaric
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