The Clock Is Ticking For Dirty White Gold

Back in September I wrote about Dirty White Gold, a crowd-funded documentary about the cotton industry and how it abuses both the farmers that grow the crop and the land on which it grows. The film is into its final week of funding, and it still needs your help to get made.

At the time of writing, DWG has raised 85% of its target £18,000. This money is being used to match cash that's already been raised in a previous fund-raising round, which will attract other investors. Film-making is a tough, expensive business, even in the low-budget documentary field in which director Leah Borromeo moves.

This is a worthwhile enterprise, that shows just how broken the current model of cotton production is becoming. As you'll see in tomorrow's post, Indian farmers are turning away from organic cotton altogether, and farmers across the sub-continent are suffering as the notoriously tough to grow crop sucks away their resources, strips their fields of nutrients and ultimately leaves them with a debt that they can't pay. Suicides in the farming community have spiked over the past few years because of the shame associated with it.

Leah and her team need to raise a puny £2,750 in the next few days to meet their target and keep Dirty White Gold on the tracks. The Pier have already contributed. If this is a film you'd like to see, go ahead and drop them some cash.

Here's the trailer.


The Cotton Film : Dirty White Gold | Crowdfunding trailer from Leah Borromeo on Vimeo.

While we're at it, Leah has done a decently extensive interview with Ecouterre on the film and her reasons for making it. Well worth a read, but let me just quote her final statement, that I think goes to the heart of why Dirty White Gold is so important. She says:

I want to go into a store, buy a coat, and not have to think about whether anyone’s killed themselves in the making of it because a human morality is in every stitch.

Can't really say fairer than that, can you?

You can help to fund Dirty White Gold on their Sponsume page.

DIRTY WHITE GOLD ON SPONSUME

Rankabrand and a Paradigm Shift.

A paradigm shift is an event that changes the way that you thought about something. It can be quite a shocking thing to happen, as your preconceptions and prejudices lose their solid footing.

Last night, I came across a link posted by our old friends at Ethletic, the ethical shoe manufacturer. They had come close to the top in the rankings for footwear in the Rankabrand listings, a pretty solid judge of a brand's sustainability. The ranking is based on issues like child labour, fair wages for workers, environmentally friendly leather tanning, eco-friendly materials, banning hazardous and toxic chemicals and the reduction of carbon emissions.

Ethletic's great showing in the lists wasn't such a surprise--nor was the fact that number one was Veja, award-winning Dutch innovators of eco-shoe-wear. No, the big surprise was at number 4, a slot taken by Nike-owned rock-n-roll shoe icon Converse.

I had been under the impression that Converse had a dreadful record on sustainability. Not the case, apparently. Which means that I have been wandering around shoe shops for the last year sneering at the display of Chuck Taylor's fine shoes for no good reason.

Worse still, fine English brands like Clark's and Dr. Martens are waaaay down the lists. This is, to put it mildly, discombobulating. Which just goes to show, you should never rest on your preconceptions. You could be in for a nasty shock.

The Rankabrand site is well worth a browse, just to see how your favourite brands stack up on sustainability.

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The Future Of Upcycling

As we all know, recycling and upcycling are by far the greenest of eco-fashion options open to us as consumers. Why put new stress on landfill sites when you can simply reuse the cool old clothing you've already got? If it's looking a bit too worn or tatty, then use bits of it to make new products! Easy lemon peasy puddings, right?

If only. That works quite nicely for a personal or small-scale enterprise, but it's tricky to ramp up the model to retail level. There are problems with erratic supply (old clothes have a way of running out or simply not being available) and with the material itself. Cotton, for example, is not something that you can simply roll into a cradle-to-cradle loop to create the ever-lasting jumper. Over time, the fibres shorten, and will eventually wear out.

Consider also the complexity of the modern garment. A breathable outdoor jacket with membrane, zips, buttons, rivets, drawstrings and bonded seams is not something that you can build with bits from other clothes. The best you can do in that case is to roll in as much material as you can from materials like PET that are based on recycled sources, like plastic drinks bottles.

The best approach is to rethink the whole process from top to bottom. Not the cheapest of options, but the one that will reap the greatest rewards in the long run. The front runner here is outdoor clothing brand Patagonia, who have run recycling programmes since 2005 and have Ebay shops for discounted preloved clothing, putting the clothes and the people that want them together. It helps that they're a cult and collectible name, of course, but Patagonia have been ahead of the curve in terms of thinking about extending the lifestyle of their products for years.

Meanwhile, Puma's Creative Sustainability Lab is going back to the design stage for future ranges of recyclable and compostable products. This is already showing dividends--the rethink of their packaging led to the introduction of the iconic Little Red Bag. This is made from recycled cardboard and can go straight onto the compost heap. it's also half the size of their old packaging, which has dropped their carbon emissions by millions of tons a year. If the big hitters are thinking like this, then you can be sure others will follow.

Innovations like smart RFID tags in clothing could have a big impact on making large-scale recycling much simpler. Data held on the tags can give a full breakdown of exactly what materials went into each item of clothing. Team this with software that can tell you what can be made from this raw material, and you have an upcycler's dream. A Swiss company called I:CO has already developed this chip, and they claim to be working with major names including yes, Puma, to further develop it.

Automation of the sorting process is also important, and a European Union initiative, the Textiles4textiles plant, is up, running, and looking for backing. This plant identifies and sorts materials like wool, cotton and polyester speedily and efficiently. A big step forward for getting raw materials back into the production cycle.

It's an exciting time for the re-and-upcycling industry, as cradle-to-cradle concepts start to percolate out from the realm of the theoretical, and into real-world applications and solutions. It's an old way of thinking, with a very 21st century spin on it.

Profit and Loss for M&S

A bumpy couple of weeks for M&S. Possibly our most eco-friendly high street store made headlines by signing up to Greenpeace's Detox challenge, and pledging to remove all toxic chemicals from its clothes manufacturing by 2020. This is a big step, but one that's completely in tune with the chain's Plan A initiative to green up their supply chain.

However, the news isn't all good. Their first-half financial report, just released, shows a sharp drop in profits, down 6%. The blame for this seems to point at that pesky supply chain--specifically, failure to get the clothes that they were TV-advertising into the shops in sufficient quantity.

This compares dismally with Primark, whose first-half profits have bounced up by 15% in the same period. Which just goes to show the harsh rule of retail. You can be as virtuous as you like in your company philosophy. You can recycle and shwop all the clothes you like. But if you can't get your products to your customers, then that's a major problem. There's a reason it's called fast fashion. Primark succeed by responding quickly and in volume to rapidly changing trends. Sadly, until M&S learn that lesson, they're not going to make inroads into that market and perhaps persuade the fickle British consumer to change their ways.

The Life Of A T-Shirt

If you need a quick, sharp lesson in the damage that fast fashion is doing to the planet, then you really should check out the brilliant infographic that's just gone up at Urban Times. The work of Harley Barron, in association with Textsure, it lays out the huge impact that a single T-shirt has on the environment in bold, clear text and pics.

It's a shame it's such a big pic, because the post-modern effect of printing it on a t-shirt would be truly epic.  I've embedded the infographic below, but for the full effect, click on it or the link above to go to the full size version at Urban Times.

A Greener Way To Shop?

Grumble about it with all your might, but there's no getting away from the awful truth; we're rapidly approaching the season of consumption. Most retailers will expect to see 40-50% of their sales in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Imagine it. The queues. The parking nightmares. The stores full of screaming, arguing families...
Is it any wonder that more and more of us are doing our Christmas shopping online? Make a cuppa, get yourself comfy on the sofa, fire up the laptop and there you go, shopping done. And, by moving away from the centralised shipping and big-box store energy impacts, you can be smug in the knowledge that you're conspicuous consumption is being done in a far greener way. Right?

Well, yeah, kinda, but. Let's not forget that the big online heavy lifters have their own environmental and ethical questions to be answered. Amazon, to pluck an example out of the air, have faced accusations of worker exploitation and an extremely poor record on paying their corporation tax--a figure that adds up to billions for the cash-strapped British economy. And of course, they have to ship everything they sell to your door using a vast network of trucks and distribution centres--your new pair of Converse or that Christmas party dress doesn't pop through your letterbox by magic.

There are ways round the dilemma, which the savvy green shopper should already know all about. Shopping locally using smaller retailers saves a lot of the grief of slogging round big, isolated warehouses. They too, if they're on the ball, will have their own internet shopping hub, meaning that you can support a small business and cut transportation costs.

Bear in mind that the internet is as useful a research tool as it is a shopping basket. It's worth spending a bit of time that you'd using prowling the big sites to see what's available in your local area. Even if it does mean cracking the airlock and actually going into town, at least you'll be focussed on one or two shops, rather then having to face a painful, aimless meander looking out for the perfect pair of socks for Uncle Jim.

And who knows, this year you might find the whole process to be that little bit less painful. That's my Christmas wish, anyway...

Talking About The Ocean

Thinking about sustainability, particularly in the fashion sector, is still a process in its early stages of development. To get it right needs a framework and a set of goals, or at least something to argue about.

Kate Fletcher, Reader in Sustainable Fashion at the London College Of Fashion, has posted a link on her blog to a series of talks she recently took part in that hopes to map out that framework. Titled "50 Ways of Working Sustainably,", the talk is part of work being done by The Puma Sustainable Design Collective. Yes, that Puma. Amongst the sports clothing multi-nationals, they seem to be taking the lead in opening up the discussion about how fast fashion impacts the planet, and what we can do about it.

This is inspiring and thought-provoking stuff, and well worth your time. Bizarrely, it's password-protected - hardly an open approach to the discussion. However, Kate has been kind enough to share the code, and I feel it my duty to do the same.

If you're interested in some of the radical thinking being done to reconfigure fast fashion and its economic, social and environmental impacts, then this hour-long video is well worth your time.

Watch "50 Ways of Working Sustainably" here on Vimeo. The password is md101.

Pop to the Pop-Up Shop

I'm a little late to the game, I'm afraid. But if you happen to be in London's painfully fashionable Shoreditch area today or tomorrow, you could do worse than check out the PureThread pop-up shop that's making a brief appearance on Old Street.

A partnership between the hip New York-based styling service and eco-fashionista Jocelyn Whipple, the shop highlights the best and most innovative in sustainable and green fashion.

Look out for brands like Stewart + Brown, KAMI and Privatsachen at the store, which is open from 11am to 8pm today and tomorrow. Lots to see and buy... but you'd better get your skates on!

The PureThread Pop-Up Shop is at 67 Old Street in Shoreditch, EC1V 9HW, in That London.

The Terrible Truth Behind Bangladeshi Leather

There's disturbing news coming out of Bangladesh, as Human Rights Watch highlight the environmental and humanitarian abuses committed by local leather tanneries: abuses that the government seem either unwilling or incapable of fixing.
The report on Bangladesh's Hazaribagh region, released earlier this month, reels off a horrific string of occupational hazards faced by leather workers. They suffer from skin diseases and respiratory problems caused by exposure to toxic chemicals used to tan the hides, and limb amputations from improperly secured cutting machines.
The waste water that comes off the tannery floors goes directly back into the local supply. This water is tainted with chunks of animal flesh, and chemicals like sulphuric acid, chromium and lead. Children as young as 11 work full shifts in the factories, soaking hides in these chemicals and operating the razor-edged cutters that trim them. Workers are regularly denied sick leave or compensation for injuries caused on the job.
It's a shocking list of human rights and environmental abuses, and the Bangladeshi government are doing little to put it right. Plans to relocate the tanneries and shut down the worst of the offenders have been in bureaucratic deadlock since 2005, despite international rulings to safeguard the rights and safety of everyone in the territory.
In the meantime, the tanneries continue to blight the landscape, chasing profits that have risen by $41million per year in the last decade. The leather of Hazaribagh is worth big money to the multinationals that export it. To the people who work in the factories, it's all they have; a Catch-22 situation that the factory owners and the government are happy to exploit.
For more, I recommend a look at Human Rights Watch's page on the humanitarian and environmental crisis in Hazaribagh, which contains a link to the full report. It makes for shocking and eye-opening reading.
   

Old Becomes New Again At Midnorth Mercantile

Sustainability is, at heart, the process of making things last. Making clothes out of durable hard-wearing material, manufacturing them so that they don't fall apart after a little bit of use. The vintage and second-hand market has always pivoted on this ideal. Old clothes were made to last. With a little care and thought, they can have a new lease of life far beyond that imagined by the original manufacturer.

If you're ever in Minnesota, it's worth tracking down Midnorth Mercantile. This vintage menswear store, based in downtown Minneapolis, has made an art out of the craft of repurposing old clothing for the modern man. Owner "Moustache" Mike Ader understands that well-made clothes can improve with age. If they don't, due to cut, fit or wear, then he reworks them into desirable new items. Mike says:

"The purpose is to try to reuse all the materials in some form, whether that's in constructing something new out of old material, using the material to repair a less damaged garment to make it sellable, or using old and new materials together on a project like the Candy Stripe Tote."

Ah yes, the Candy Stripe Tote. This is probably the best example of the work that Midnorth Mercantile do so well. Crafted from Mike's collection of old Hudson Bay wool blankets and teamed with new leather fittings, their take on a classic blanket bag is already generating a buzz, even at the prototype stage. We're going to see a lot more of the Candy Stripe Tote, I feel.

Midnorth Mercantile have struck a fine balance between respect for vintage items, the craft and effort that went into them, and the demands of the modern fashion marketplace. The clothes and accessories look great, and have a heft and history that only makes them more desirable. This is not your average second-hand clothes store.

Check out the website for more.