Textile pledges toolkit

We're hoping to make Brighton & Hove a city that chooses to repair, recycle and reuse. All sorts of things would otherwise go to the landfill or be incinerated.

Volunteers started collecting pledges as part of our Circular Economy Champions scheme. The scheme has now finished but we still encourage you to collect pledges in your community. Every pledge helps us move towards a Circular Economy.

This information pack helps you pass on tips and information to family and friends. This can help keep things in circulation longer.

We have a linear economy. This means raw materials are made into products that consumers use until they discard them as waste. 

Pledges are new actions someone commits to, that support the development of a circular economy. This involves recycling, repairing, returning and reusing products for as long as possible.

These pledges can:

• save residents money
• save the council money to invest in other services
• support Circular Economy businesses that offer reuse and repair services in Brighton & Hove

You can:

• download pledge examples
• download a blank pledge form

Image source: The R Collective

In the linear economy, household waste is converted into a reusable material at the ‘get rid’ stage. While this means the waste doesn't end up in landfill or energy recovery straight away, energy and materials are still needed to recycle.

For most materials there's a limited number of times that material can be recycled before it needs to be thrown away. 

In a circular economy, rather than waiting until the ‘get rid’ stage, extending the products' life is possible at the creation stage. This prevents waste and pollution.

A circular economy:

• reduces the materials used
• makes the production less resource intensive
• recaptures waste as a resource to manufacture new products without the use of virgin materials at the end of the products' life

In the linear economy for textiles more than 97% of the materials used to make clothes and other textile products are taken from the natural world. More than 73% of all these clothes and other products are sent to landfill or incinerated after use. 

This means that almost every time we make a new cotton and polyester t-shirt, we must:

• grow cotton - which takes land, labour and water resources
• extract petroleum from the ground - which takes energy and labour
• process the cotton and petroleum to make cotton and polyester threads
• weave and sew a t-shirt

That t-shirt is then used and thrown away, so all the cotton, polyester, time, water, labour and energy used to make it is also thrown away, either in landfill or in an incinerator. 

But in a circular economy, we take the used t-shirt, repair it and re-use it as many times as possible. Then re-cycle it so we can make new textiles from it.

If we don’t throw materials away, we don’t need to take new materials from the natural world to make new clothes or textiles.

The best thing we can do to make sure nothing is wasted is to only use natural materials. They can biodegrade when we can't use them or recycle them any further.

Image source: The waste hierarchy London School of Economics and Political Science

As part of this toolkit, you’ll receive a form for collecting and monitoring pledges.

When you collect pledges, encourage people to prioritise the most preferred options like reduce and reuse. 

On the textiles pledge form, we’ve given examples of actions residents could take. We've listed actions with the greatest impact first. For example - repair damaged clothes to avoid buying new ones. 

Actions lower down have less impact like - stop throwing old shoes and clothes in the bin, and instead donate or recycle them.

Some suggestions for pledge examples are:

1. I'll unsubscribe from marketing campaigns that send me clothing adverts.
2. I'll reduce my new shoe and clothing purchases by X% this year compared to last year.
3. I'll wash my clothes less and wash on gentler cycles at 30 degrees. This will help my clothes last longer and reduce micro-fibre release.
4. I'll always let my clothes air-dry if possible. Tumble dryers cost more to run and make clothes shrink, wear and fade fast.
5. Next time I buy new clothes, I'll spend more than I usually would on a garment so I know it will last longer.
6. Next time I buy new, I'll buy from a company with a low or negative environmental footprint.
7. I'll boost my mending skills by going to a drop-in session or do a sewing course.
8. I'll have my clothes mended.
9. I'll host a clothes swap with friends.
10. I'll buy pre-loved clothes first from one of the many charity shops or vintage boutiques in the city, or from a fashion exchange app.
11. I'll sell my unused clothes.
12. I'll clear out my wardrobe and donate unused clothes to one of our many charity shops or direct to neighbours, friends and family.
13. I'll participate in Free Your Wardrobe!
14. I'll donate school uniforms or start my own uniform swap scheme.
15. I'll buy pre-loved school uniforms.
16. I'll sign up to a clothing rental service.
17. I'll recycle clothes that can't be repaired at my nearest recycling point.
18. I'll involve a friend to become a Textiles Champion.

You can also:

• download the pledge examples
• download a blank pledge form

Talking to neighbours, or close friends, about their habits and behaviours can be challenging. 

It’s good to use open questions, to avoid suggesting a right or wrong way to do things. This helps people to trust you and not feel judged.

Try one of these questions to start a conversation.

1. Have you had a clear out of your wardrobe this year?
2. What's the oldest (or newest) piece of clothing you own?
3. Have you ever been to a clothes swap?
4. In the UK, 6 in 10 people haven’t learned to sew. I fall into this category. What about you?
5. What have you experienced to be the greatest barrier to repair or donate clothes?
6. I still have some kids clothes that I can’t bear to throw away which I know is pretty crazy. Did you know there are 183 million items of outgrown baby clothes stored in UK cupboards alone?

When you collect pledges, use some of these interesting facts to help people make good choices around textile consumption, reuse, repair and recycling.

Sewing

Sewing is a dying skill because:

• almost 6 in 10 people admitted that they are unable to sew much or at all
• 1 in 4 people in Briton can't sew on a button
• 1 in 5 people in Britons said if they lost a button, they'd buy a new item of clothing instead of fixing it

Overproduction and fast fashion

The global production of garments stands at 100 to 120 billion each year, with only 7 billion people on our planet.

Some shops are known for producing more clothing than they will sell, and/or selling low quality items that don’t last. Clean Clothes Campaign and Greenpeace can help you stay up-to-date about which shops overproduce. 

It’s estimated that more than two tonnes of clothing are bought each minute in the UK. This is more than any other country in Europe.

Textile waste

On average Europeans each consume 26 kilos and discard 11 kilos of textiles every year.

Although people could repair or donate a lot of used clothes, 87% get incinerated or sent to landfill.

The financial cost

In 2016 in the UK we spent about £3 billion to replace clothes that we could have mended.

In UK homes, about a third of garments are unworn. This amounts to over £1000 per household and £30 billion in total.

Globally, less than 1% of material used to produce clothing is recycled into new garments. This wastes over £70 billion worth of materials each year.

The environmental cost

It takes 2,700 litres of water to make one t-shirt. This is enough drinking water for 1 person for 2.5 years.

Producing one new shirt creates the same carbon footprint as a 35 mile car journey.

Textile production causes 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This is more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.

Dyeing and finishing textiles is responsible for about 20% of global clean water pollution.

Cotton growing uses 18% of pesticides and 25% of insecticides used worldwide.

Washing clothes with synthetic materials like nylon and polyester accounts for 35% of primary microplastics released into the environment. It releases about 0.5 million tonnes of microfibers into oceans each year.

Polyester textiles take more than 200 years to decompose.

Textile recycling

• Map of recycling points in Brighton & Hove for clothes and shoes

However you choose to collect pledges, it's important to think about Health and Safety.

The table below shows some common considerations for any activity.

Videos

• The True Cost (Documentary, 2015)
• Free your Wardrobe!
• Fashion's Crippling Impact On The Environment Is Only Getting Worse
• Did you know less than 1% of old clothing becomes new clothes? Make a circular economy for fashion
• RubyMoon X Centexbel Circular Fabric Development

Podcasts

• Wardrobe crisis

News stories

• The impact of textile production and waste on the environment - European Parliament
• BHF exposes UK sewing skills shortage to launch The Big Stitch
• New shocking facts about the impact of fast fashion on our climate - Oxfam GB
• The UK’s fast fashion habit is getting worse – and it’s destroying the planet - Greenpeace UK

Websites

• Fashion Revolution
• Love Your Clothes - WRAP TRAID

Circular Economy resources

• Explaining the Circular Economy and How Society Can Re-think Progress
• What is a circular economy? - Ellen MacArthur Foundation
• Hubbub