While using ecologically-friendly products around the house and eliminating unnecessary waste are often targeted as prime ways to become more green, rarely does the topic of clothing arise. From the ways the fabrics are dyed and treated, to the intensive shipping process most clothing endures to get into your hands, purchasing a new pair of jeans or a great blouse is rarely an environmentally-friendly decision. Unfortunately, though a few alternatives do exist, most of us are required to purchase clothing from mainstream retailers. In order to keep your personal impact at a minimum, it is important to understand the principal of sustainability in relation to the clothing you wear.

As clothes go where you go, wear and tear is a normal occurrence. The longer you’ve had an item in your closet, the more likely it is that the garment has begun to show signs of use. Replacing old clothing is not only expensive, but it’s unlikely that your old garments will be used again, meaning you’ve wasted significant resources.

Sustainable Clothing - How Can You Help?

image by B Rosen

While entirely avoiding the cycle is next to impossible, there are several steps you can take to prolong the use you’ll get from your clothing. Most of the important things to remember relate to the manner in which you take care of your clothes. In other words, if you treat your clothing well, it should last longer.

One of the hardest things you do to your clothes is wash them. While the cleaning process is a necessity, using different chemicals on your clothing and tossing them into dryer only furthers the normal wear and tear those articles experience daily. One great way to extend the life of your clothing is to wash it with cold water. Most clothing can be washed this way without problem, and this is much less damaging to the fabric. Furthermore, you’ll be saving energy.

Wash Clothes with Cold Water

Once your clothes have finished drying, consider air drying them. In the summer, hanging a clothes line across your backyard is an easy way to save energy and treat your clothing better.  Note that it is important to determine the sun’s position, as direct sunlight can fade clothing. You can also dry your clothing inside on a clothing rack. If you simply must have your clothing dried in the dryer, use the lowest setting.

Sustainable Clothing Drying

Image by stacy michelle

Another key to prolonging the life of your clothing is to mend any problems as they arise. Small holes will soon become large holes, and taking care of such issues immediately will prevent further damage from occurring. You may also wish to save extra buttons that come on shirts or that you find, as they’ll allow you to find an appropriate match for a shirt that may lose a button down the road.

While some of these steps take a bit of extra effort, taking care of your clothing is sure to help it stick around for a bit longer. Not only will the environment thank you, but so will your pocketbook! What could be better than that?

Sarah Danielson writes for http://www.tshirtprinting.net where you can design your own custom clothing at affordable prices.

Step 1: Gather up Your Used Plastic Bags

2/ You will need the following, an iron, an ironing board, a pair of scissors, some paper (wax paper or parchment paper works best).

3/ Start by setting up your ironing board in a well ventilated area, open all the windows and setup a fan to direct fumes away from you, and lay a sheet of paper down to cover the ironing board.

4/ Choose a plastic bag to start with and if it has handles cut them off, also cut a strip of plastic from the bottom of the bag to make it open ended.

5/ Fold the plastic bag in half and then fold it in half again, this will give you an 8 ply piece of plastic, i.e. it will have 8 layers. Place this on the paper on the ironing board and lay another sheet of paper on top to completely cover the piece of plastic.

6/ Start applying heat from the iron to the paper – plastic – paper sandwich! Keep the iron moving to provide an even heat, do this for 10 – 15 seconds and the plastic should then be “fused” together. Watch this video below for a tutorial of how to fuse your plastic bags;

7/ Once you have a decent collection of fused plastic sheets you can start to design some clothing, or a bag or anything else you can think of! Check out Urban Woods Walkers coat creation below;

A Large Piece of Fused Plastic Fabric

Plans for a Reused Plastic Coat!

The Finished Fused Plastic Fabric Coat

The Wonderful Finished Plastic Coat

Please use caution whenever around a hot iron and when ironing plastic, always make sure you have the plastic completely covered with paper before applying the iron.
We hope you were inspired to go reuse some of those old plastic bags and perhaps turn them into something beautiful and wearable…