Organic T-Shirts and Zero Waste

Tuesday 24th of August 2010 02:20:37 PM

Organic T-Shirts and Zero Waste

Are you wearing plain t-shirts? Are you using biodegradable washing liquids? Do you carefully recycle your clothing by either donating them or restyling them to bring them up to date? If so, you are a member of the “green” society and trying to live as a responsible citizen. But are you doing all you can?

The true fashion forward group doesn’t think you are because you are still wearing clothes that led to the addition of scrap fabric in the landfills. Their goal is zero waste, and it begins with the clothing manufacturing process.

The concept of zero waste is exactly what it sounds like. The goal is to use every scrap of fabric while the clothes are being cut in order to eliminate tons of waste. Fabric that makes it to landfills will endure for decades and any that is kept out of the landfill benefits the environment. Normally there is as much as 20 percent waste during the fabric cutting process which is quite a bit of waste by anyone’s standards.

There is an avant-garde group of designers who have been working on clothing designs that use every bit of fabric so there is zero waste. These pioneers will be showcasing their designs in New Zealand in spring 2011. A second show will be held in New York in 2011. Right now the zero waste designers that are leading the fashion world into this new territory are from England, Australia and New Zealand. The United States is just now joining this environmentally focused group, but it took a designer from Malaysia who is working in New York.

How do you design t-shirts, jackets, jeans or sweatshirts using the concept of zero waste? It takes special effort in terms of how the fabric is cut and how the clothing pieces are fit together. Right now the problem as far as going mainstream with clothing manufacturers is that the zero waste process requires reengineering of much of the current supply lines to accommodate the new cutting methods.

Though zero waste is a concept that has far to go in terms of its regular application, the fact it exists shows that the clothing industry is undergoing a change in terms of being more environmentally conscious. And that is a good thing any way you look at it.