Make an apron from a couch (not a cow)

Tyson spends a lot of time in his shed and wanted a decent work apron.

After pricing both pre-made aprons and commercially available leather, it was looking like an expensive project. But then our neighbourhood had bulk waste and the problem was solved.

Given the number of leather couches we have seen on verges in the past six months, it seems there is at present a cultural trend to chuck them out. Perhaps the leather is irredeemably cracked or worn - but almost always only on the front. The back is often nearly two square metres of undamaged leather.

This provided all the leather Tyson needed to craft himself a beautiful apron, complete with clips salvaged from an old back pack.

Initial Time: Cutting leather from the couch down the road was a lot quicker than getting to a shop to purchase new material. Making a hand-crafted apron took many days.

Initial Cost: Two reels of heavy-duty thread and one pack of rivets (approx $15)

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Zero (and a LOT cheaper than buying new leather!)

Impact: Lets be honest - this action was motivated by convenience and finance, along with our commitment to recycle/ upcycle wherever possible. I won't bore you again with the figures about how much waste Australians make, but this took a big piece of leather out of landfill.

I have since done a little investigation into the environmental impacts of leather production and it seems this choice was also 'green' on several other counts. (As I am not ethically opposed to the killing of animals per se, this is not one of those counts for me, but it needs a mention as I know it is a deal-breaker for many others)

Firstly, tanning of leather involves toxic chemicals. I haven't found a solid source explaining what chemicals are used, but various (anti-leather) sites suggest formaldehyde, azocolorants, pentachlorophenol, lead, chromium, cyanide, arsenic, sodium sulfide, sodium hydroxide, sodium hydrosulfite and dimethyl amine (along with several other scary sounding compounds that when I looked them up turned out to not be toxic). Several of these are bioaccumulative heavy metals, building up in the bodies of tannery workers, the land on which tanneries are sited and the waterways that tanneries feed into. At the lower end of health concerns are skin and respiratory complaints (and that tanneries smell really bad); at the higher end are risks of blindness and up to 50% higher rates of cancer.

Then there re human rights concerns about the conditions that workers are under while producing leather - much of which reportedly comes from Bangladesh, where protections for workers are acknowledged to be poor. Many leather workers are children.

There are also concerns about excessive water use, especially when linked to also polluting waste water in ways that do not allow it to return safely to the ecosystem.

Cattle raising brings its own sustainability concerns (It should be noted that this relates particularly to more intensive forms of farming, which are less common in Australia's cattle industry, although animal rights groups believe the use of feedlots is on the increase here also). And although leather is a by-product of meat production, it is not a waste product. As meat consumption is in decline while leather consumption is increasing, it is likely at some point animals will be raised primarily for their skins rather than their meat.

There are also environmental concerns with faux leather, not least being its use of petrochemicals. Also, as it generally wears much quicker than leather, it becomes waste and needs replacing more regularly than leather products.

Both real and faux leather have the perpetual issues of energy use and pollution in production, transport, packaging and retail.

When I searched for 'recycled leather' I found either Pinterist craft ideas for reusing scraps, or options for commercially pulping scrap leather to roll into a new semi-leather product. All good, but meanwhile great big pieces of good leather are going into the bin with each bulk waste collection, as couch after couch is crushed and carried away. Get out there with your Stanley knives people and rescue some leather*!
(*from discarded couches that are clearly too worn out to be reused as couches)

Links:

A whole website dedicated to sustainable leather - talking chemicals, supply chains, waste, etc

Human Rights Watch report on tanneries in Bangladesh

Guardian article discussing environmental impact of leather vs faux leather

Shop Ethical Guide on issues in leather (although mostly quoting straight from PETA website)

RSPCA stance on leather

Someone else's blog considering these issues

Info for businesses wanting to recycle leather

Jeans

I live in my jeans. I work from home and often wear jeans every day of the week.

So when all three pairs came through the same washing load recently with irredeemable holes it was a small-scale clothing crisis. I had mended and patched my jeans many times over, but they had gone beyond repair. 

I have been vaguely aware that jeans have many levels of ethical concern. I decided that as this is an item of clothing I rely on so heavily, it was time to research properly and find ethical jeans. 

According to the Shop Ethical website, there are at least six areas of potential concern around jeans: transparency in the supply chain, use of sweatshops overseas, use of underpaid Australian outworkers, forced child labour in cotton production, excessive pesticide and insecticide use in cotton production, and toxic sandblasting in preparing denim. It was quickly apparent that if I wanted to attempt an ethical purchase on all six fronts I would need to purchase from a small operator, almost certainly online. If I wanted to walk into a store and buy jeans over the counter my best option looked like being Jeanswest (pretty good on addressing labour and supply chain issues; not so good on the pesticides/insecticides/sandblasting issues). 

The options I found online that looked reasonably sound were: Kuyichi (from the Netherlands), Nudie Jeans (Sweden) and Monkee Genes (UK). Australian brands Denimsmith and Nobody Denim (both Melbourne) are each accredited with Ethical Clothing Australia. However, this considers workers pay and conditions but not broader environmental considerations.

The only problem was: none of the jeans available through these companies was a style I was prepared to wear. The trend at present is for super slim legs and I am not of a build that takes kindly to skinny styling. Where I could find some looser designs the fabric was artificially 'aged' with fake wear and tear. Having spent plenty of time patching worn or torn knees I can't come at buying clothes with holes in them, however stylishly arranged.

In the end I chose to visit an op shop. There I found jeans in a size and style that suited me. Perhaps they were originally made in sweatshops using cotton doused in pesticides and picked by child slaves, but my money did no support any of those things: it went to the St Vincent de Paul Society, who provide services for the poor. Further, by supporting op shops I am encouraging recycling of clothing, hopefully reducing the demand for the blood-sweat-and-poison soaked clothing of mainstream stores. (Is that too dramatic? Over 10% of the world's pesticides and nearly 25% of its insecticides are used in growing cotton, of which jeans are made; in Uzbekistan, the world's 5th largest cotton exporter, the government enlists children as forced labour to harvest the material; thirteen other cotton-producing countries also use child labour, with children reporting health issues as a result of exposure to pesticides; silicon used in sandblasting denim causes emphysema; in sweatshops throughout Asia underpaid workers are crowded into unsafe conditions to sew Western clothing and periodically these conditions kill them)

Initial Time: researching online took a couple of hours; visiting the op shop took about half an hour. I find the lack of choice liberating: there were only about seven pairs of jeans in my size in the store; three were acceptable so I bought them. Simple.

Initial Cost: Had I been able to find a style that suited me, the online ethical options had jeans from about $100, with a wide selection around the $120 mark. Buying at an op shop is of course a cost saving. However, as I can afford to pay more than $4 for my jeans, I also made a donation to the store above the shelf price. It was still a lot cheaper than buying jeans new.

Ongoing time or cost commitment:

 

It is now over three years since I committed to twelve months of buying only ethical clothing for myself. In that first year I bought one jumper and a couple of bras. In both instances I used the Shop Ethical Guide to check that my purchase wasn't from a company with terrible human rights records, but I didn't got out of my way to chase up the most ethical option. I had some worthwhile conversations with shop assistants about ethics in clothing, raising issues with them that they had never had customers ask before. Those conversations were probably more important than the impact of where my dollars were spent.

Taking action about jeans is an outworking of that earlier commitment and will hopefully lead to other related actions.

Since the first year I have bought a few items from op shops, a few rounds of unconsidered underwear, and some clothes from Kathmandu (a big chain doing pretty well on several fronts: workers' pay and conditions, source of materials, and reducing packaging) and Nomad Gnome Fremantle (a local store personally sourcing from ethical small producers in Nepal). All up my 2013 commitment has, as I anticipated at the time, meant I have spent far less time and money overall on buying clothes. Never a big clothes buyer anyway, my acquisition is down to a trickle. It makes me happy not to be overfilling my wardrobe.

Nomad Gnome shirt with Op Shop jeans

It will be a few years before I need to buy jeans again, but I am committed to having another go next time at finding something ethical that I am also happy to wear, even if it means paying a little more (perhaps fashion will have changed by then). In the meantime I will tell my slender friends about the great online ethical jeans options they have available to them!

Impact: This has mostly been discussed above. I recommend the Shop Ethical Guide's discussion of ethical issues for denim (click arrows for detail on each issue) - this explains things clearly and concisely, so I have not repeated most of it here.

One area not mentioned is packaging. This is a concern of mine with online shopping, as everything seems to come packaged in plastic to ensure it arrives safely. Any store that is not producing on site is likely to use packaging in transporting goods - the more stages in the production, the more rounds of packaging. I put my unwrapped purchases in my bicycle basket to get them home: zero packaging.

And of course the carbon footprint of transporting from farm to fabric production to clothing production to warehouse (usually multiple stages of) to store is not insignificant either. Clothes at Vinnies may have been moved around the city a couple of times from donation bin to sorting centre to store, but its hardly comparable with the way new clothes criss-cross the globe, as raw materials, fabric and finished products. Opting for an op shop meant drastically reduced carbon footprint on transport and almost zero waste on packaging.

Hand warmers and hot water bottle

When working from our home office I have committed to, wherever possible, warming myself rather than warming all the air around me.

The office is often the coldest room in the house and I have spent a lot of time there this winter. Besides wearing warm clothes (including ugg boots) and often wrapping myself in a blanket, I also started to put a hot water bottle under my feet at the desk. I am amazed at how successful this is at keeping me warm. One hot water bottle, wrapped in a towel, lasts a whole work day.

I also purchased hand warmers from our good friend Megan of Granny Funk Crochet.

Sometimes I will also warm a heat pack in the microwave and sit it in my lap for a while in the morning when it is most cold, or if I am working at night. With these aids, I virtually never turn a heater on for the office. I think better with cool air on my face, so these are both sustainability and productivity measures.

Initial Time: Boiling a full kettle for a hot water bottle takes about 5 minutes. Purchasing hand warmers involved some emails with Megan and a few days to wait for delivery.

Initial Cost: Extra hot water bottles purchased recently cost $12.95 each. They now have covers made out of cut up old jumpers, and I also wrap my office foot-warmer one in an old towel - no cost. Hand warmers were $30. Or you could sign up for one of the Granny Funk crochet classes and learn to make them yourself.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Five minutes for the hot water bottle each time. A cost saving due to reducing the amount of energy used for heating (see below).

Impact: Boiling a full kettle of water (1.75L) when the temperature is 10°C uses approximately 661.5kJ of energy, or 0.184kWh ('units' in our system) - 184Wh, or about the same as leaving a 60 Watt light bulb on for three hours. (see my previous kettle post for the formulas). Microwaving a heat pack (wheat bag) uses around 42Wh to give warmth for about two hours.

When all attempts to warm myself with body heat, clothing and a hot water bottle fail, I use an electric oil-fin heater. This is a 1000W device, but as I would never run it flat out and it heats a confined space, the actual use is less than this. If I were to run it for nine hours of work day, it would use approximately 3.5kWh.

Using one boiled kettle instead of the oil fin heater for a day of warmth saves over 3kWh (units) a day, around 2.5kg of carbon dioxide every winter work day. 

Running the reverse cycle air-conditioner in our living area to warm enough house to reach the office is hard to measure, but the office is the far corner of the house from the aircon. A fairly conservative guess would be 5-6kWh per day to use the reverse cycle to heat the office, which is why we don't do that.

Get ready for Christmas - give something away

I have decided it is time to initiate a new family custom around times of receiving gifts - birthdays and Christmas: give something away in preparation.

 

Tyson and I had a go at giving away some of our books. We are book-lovers and book-hoarders, so this was quite a challenge! They are destined for charity - most likely Save the Children. (Their annual book sale at UWA raises upward of $250,000 for their work, and they now have a permanent second-hand book shop at Belmont Forum, which is near to us)

I packaged up a box of baby clothes for a friend who is expecting a third child... having given away all their baby things after the second child got beyond baby.

And I asked Eva and Edan to give away one toy each. (OK, I did this on Edan's behalf, as he is too little to understand). We have one-year-old and four-year-old birthday parties to attend this week, so rather than buy gifts our children have selected something of their own. In good condition, of course, and it had to be something they had enjoyed and played with, not a 'reject'.

Not for giveaway! But he does love climbing into boxes... and everything else...

I am hoping that this can become a family practice - the new normal - and that both we and our children might learn to let go of stuff and live with less. And to appreciate the new things all the more.

We are also preparing with this lovely Advent calendar from my sister in PNG

Initial Time: About an hour going through the bookshelves and baby clothes

 Initial Cost: Zero

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Five times a year we do it again - four birthdays and Christmas. I anticipate the time commitment will vary depending on what sort of stuff we turn our eyes to. At birthdays only the birthday person will be looking for something to give away.

Impact: None of the items leaving the house this way would have gone to landfill. Never. Not on my watch. But I understand that in other homes baby clothes, books and outgrown toys DO join the mountains of landfill our culture produces.

I am aiming for more intangible impacts of generosity, lightness of ownership, reducing my propensity to hoard, and gratitude for what we keep.

For other Christmas ideas, see my two posts from last year.

Post Script update: I thought we were pretty bold getting the kids to give away one thing each - until I had a cuppa with my friend who had got her kids to give away one toy each... EACH DAY through December, as their lead-up to Christmas. Her kids are five and nearly eight and they managed it just fine. 

Clothing Swap - and a one-year commitment

We have done lots of things to reduce our global footprint since we began this 'one more thing per month' commitment back in May 2009. A skim over the blog archive shows we have made attempts to live more sustainably on many fronts, but I have been aware for some time there is a gaping omission in my commitments: clothing.

In June, one of the women at our church arranged an after-worship clothing swap. She was a bit overwhelmed by the volume of discarded clothing that arrived for redistribution. 

I took four bags of clothes, and came home with one bag for me and another one for a dress-up box for Eva (collected from the unwanted items being packed up at the end).

The clothing swap ran over two weeks, so we could take things home to try and return them the following week if they didn't suit. A visiting group of young people the second week helped quite a lot of the items find a new home - they could not believe their luck to be told all the clothes were free!

So, I have slightly reduced my wardrobe's load. The next step, and the one I have been actively avoiding for a while, is to commit to not refilling it with unethical garments. As this blog is called 'Small Steps' I have finally decided it is OK to commit to a small step only at this stage: for the 2013-14 financial year, I will not purchase any items of clothing for myself that are not ethically sourced and/or second-hand.

Its a small step only because I have not included clothing purchases for the children, and I have not committed to more than twelve months. 

A great deal of the clothes my children wear are hand-me-downs (to those who have passed clothes on to me for the kids - thank you! - you know who you are. Especially you who keep on handing on the next sizes after we grow past the welcome truckload of baby clothes) but just last week I bought Eva a whole pile of leggings - 'soft pants' - as she won't wear anything else at present and suddenly grew out the top and through the bottom of nearly all her existing such garments. They were $7 each and I knew as I purchased them that it could not be possible for everyone in the supply chain to have been paid and cared for appropriately for their work in making them. Eva will fit into them for a year if I am lucky. I am still struggling to commit to paying what I should be for clothes that will need replacing next year.

My first thought is that I may well simply buy nothing for myself this year. I have enough clothes. I tend to buy clothes on a whim, not go searching for a specific item. Figures from 2007 showed Australians spent $10.4 billion on clothes in that year and estimated that by 2013 we would be spending close to $12.8 billion. An average Australian woman purchases 56 clothing items per year (men buy less - around 29). Aside from proving that I am not an average Australian woman, as I find this figure outrageous and can't imagine what I would do with more than one new item of clothes per week, these statistics illustrate that we are consuming clothing at an unsustainable rate.

The most obvious issue of concern in the clothing industry is the poor conditions and low pay of clothing manufacturing workers. The horror of over 1000 clothing workers dying in Bangladesh in April because their building collapsed on them has brought the issue of third-world factory conditions to western media attention, if briefly. It is perhaps less well known that between 50 and 70% of Australian-made clothing is produced by piece-workers, often migrant women with few choices, who work to ridiculous deadlines, generally in cramped conditions, and end up earning on average $5-$8 per hour. In Australia. And many earn less - $3 an hour is well-documented - while having no superannuation, holidays or workers' compensation, and often being required to provide and maintain their own machines and tools.

Besides the immediate human impact, there are also significant environmental issues involved in the production of clothes. All that fabric comes from somewhere - cotton fields heavily sprayed with pesticides are a big supplier; non-renewable petrochemical-based materials such as nylon, vinyl, spandex, acrylic and polyester account for a significant portion of my wardrobe. All manner of chemicals are used to turn those raw materials into clothes that are coloured, shaped, pressed, washed, displayed and packaged for our purchase. Like most things we consume, clothes have often travelled a long way to reach us - and not by solar vehicles. Much clothing ends up in landfill - sadly, large amounts get there without ever being worn, but even well-worn garments are generally destined to get to the tip in the end, and if they are not natural fibres, they will have a long and stinky life there.

Buying second-hand is better than buying unethical clothes brand new, but I am also slightly uneasy about it. I have had patches in my life when I could only afford clothes if purchased from an op shop - including when I needed to outfit myself for my first professional job. It frustrated me enormously that the best items were often picked out by bargain hunters who could have afforded to buy new clothes but liked op shops.  I promised myself then that when I had a real income I would leave op shop goodies for those who had no other options. Another friend follows a policy of always paying double the shelf price when buying from an op shop. I don't entirely avoid second-hand stores, but it will be a challenge in the coming year to buy ethical, not just to avoid buying new at all.

Initial Time: Clothing swap: half an hour going through my clothes. I would have liked to take longer but it was not to be. Perhaps I was more ruthless because I was in a hurry. The clothing swap itself was a lovely friendly chat with friends while having a cuppa and wandering among rows of clothes - I don't consider it time 'spent'.

Twelve-month commitment: much thinking; no actual set-aside time. 

Initial Cost: Zero

Ongoing time or cost commitment: I am guessing individual garments will cost more, but cutting out impulse buying will mean the overall cost is about even. Similarly, time spent hunting for ethical brands will be an addition, but no longer meandering into any old clothing store that says 'sale' should be a time-saver.

Impact: Clothing swap: many of us reduced our wardrobes while adding a few items at no cost to us, to workers or to the environment; fifteen bags of clothing were gathered up at the end and passed on to charity shops. Not bad for a church gathering that has about 40 adults present on any given week.

Twelve-month commitment: I can't quantify it but I hope it will be two-fold: (1) ceasing to provide funds to clothing companies with unethical practices (2) actively financially supporting producers and retailers who are doing the right thing. I suspect it may also have the impact of changing my heart towards clothing. Just a couple of hours tonight researching this issue to write this blog have me already more concerned and willing to act differently than I have been in a long while.

I will try to let you know how this works out for me over the coming year.

Links

Slightly old but useful SMH article on Australian fashion cycles, consumer trends and their environmental and social impacts. Scroll to the almost-bottom for the 'life-cycle of fast fashion'. 

Ethical Clothing Australia (ECA) - formerly 'No Sweat' - the Australian accreditation scheme for ethical clothing

About Ethical Clothing Australia

Shop Ethical's info on Ethical Clothing Australia and on outworkers (homeworkers) in Australia

Shop Ethical's list of (as of today 120) clothing brands with ethical credentials - fair trade, organic, Australian made, alternative fibres, second hand etc, vegan (?!) and ECA-accredited. Listed in table-form showing which of these the brand gets a tick for, with links to the websites of each brand.

Fair Wear Australia - 'aims to end the exploitation of workers in the garment industry, in Australia and overseas'

Textile Clothing and Footwear Workers Union of Australia - includes information on various issues, and campaigns to participate in (eg. recent work to raise money for victims and families effected by the Bangladesh factory collapse)

Labour Behind the Label - 'supporting garment workers worldwide' - lots of campaigns to be involved in, with a resource section of research and information

Indigo Bazaar - funky-looking online fairtrade clothing shop. I haven't shopped there... yet

Check the comments section for more links or to add your own.