Around 12.8 tons of textiles end up in American landfills each year, according to the U.S Environmental Protection Agency. Spread out across the population, that works out to around 80 pounds per person, per year. To turn this shocking statistic around, we need to “close the loop” on textiles by turning our focus to a model of recycling. Here is our four-step guide to textile recycling for a cleaner planet that can sustain us all.

1. Reduce

In the 1970s, the environmental movement coined the slogan “Reduce, reuse, recycle” to encourage a more conscious approach to consumption. The first of the Rs is reduce because honestly, we don’t really need a lot of the goods that catch our eye!

For textiles and clothing, there are several ways to reduce consumption and lighten your wardrobe’s environmental footprint:

• Plan your wardrobe rather than buying on impulse.
• Buy high-quality clothes that last.
• Go for timeless classics rather than one-season styles.
• Find some new hobbies (aside from shopping) to share with your friends — nature walks and volunteering are great!

2. Reuse

Once you have a well-planned, quality wardrobe, you should be able to make it last for years. For example, a solid pair of cotton jeans should last for at least two or three years of regular wear. Imagine how many tons of textiles could be saved if we reused the same pieces instead of purchasing more!

A strong, minimalist summer skirt can easily be reused for fall with leggings and boots and styled for winter with a nice pair of jeans. Some reversible designs are now coming out that give you two looks in one — a creative approach to reusing your clothes that doesn’t sacrifice variety.

3. Repair

For the more minimalist and conservative among us, the main challenge comes when a beloved piece becomes damaged, stained, torn, or hole-poked, and no longer has its original shine. In these situations, learning how to repair your clothes can give new life to a piece that might otherwise have been thrown in the trash.

A later addition to the original 3 Rs, repairing can significantly extend the life of our clothes — giving us several more years of enjoyment or making the piece usable by somebody else. Learn a few of these simple techniques to address the most common issues:

• Take up and let down hems.
• Mend holes and gaps in seams.
• Apply appliqué and iron-on designs.
• Use embroidery techniques to cover a hole.
• Dye and tie-dye irreversibly stained clothes.

4. Recycle

Eventually, there comes a time when you need to pass a garment on. It may be that it no longer suits (or fits) you or has become so threadbare that it’s no longer warm. In both of these cases, there are options for recycling your clothes that don’t involve throwing them away.

Clothes that Are Still in Good Condition

The first rule for giving away a piece of clothing is to ask yourself, “Would you give it to a friend?” If a garment is still nice and not stretched or discolored, here are some options for sharing the love:

• Take it to a homeless shelter or other charity that could put it to good use.
• Bring it to a clothing swap.
• Offer it online through Freecycle or Marketplace.
• Donate it to Goodwill or the Salvation Army.

Clothes that Are Stretched or Worn Out

Old clothes that are no longer nice to wear can be recycled in a variety of ways. While you’ll probably want to keep underwear for rags (seriously, no one else wants your briefs!), worn-out socks, tops, pants, and shorts can be used as raw material for yarn or used as a filling for insulation, furniture, and more.

The top organizations in the United States that take textiles for recycling include:

• American Textile Recycling Service
• Threadcycle
• Soles4Souls
• Several fashion brands, including H&M, Levi’s, Patagonia, and The North Face

While many of these programs take lightly used clothes as well as old ones, we recommend recycling newer clothes closer to home through clothes swaps, thrift stores, or reselling near-new clothes online, as leftover donations are usually exported to third-world economies where they compete with local textiles for sales. 

Ultimately, buying used clothes near you is the most powerful way to close the loop and ensure that recycled clothes get recycled! And when you do buy new (those briefs, for example), make responsible, earth- and socially-friendly choices that you can be sure will enhance your wardrobe for years.

We hear a lot about swapping, mending, donating and recycling your clothes. Of course, focusing on buying sustainable, natural fabric clothes to begin with is a huge sustainability bonus. But when a garment has reached the end of its life, can you simply throw it in the trash? Are some clothes more biodegradable than others? Let’s take a look at how long the most popular fabrics take to break down and how to compost your clothes at home.

Cotton – 1 week to 5 months

Cotton is one of the most biodegradable natural fabrics available — if it’s organic, untreated, and not mixed with synthetic fibers. Close the Loop estimates that pure, organic cotton can break down and return to its original carbon state in as little as a week if it’s composted under the right conditions. Before composting that cotton tee, underwear, or pair of socks, check that it’s 100% cotton and free from harmful treatments and dyes that could leach into your compost.

Linen – 2 weeks

Linen comes from the flax plant and is used to produce breathable fitted shirts and pants. As a 100% plant-based material, linen degrades extremely quickly when composted — two weeks according to some estimates. To help your linen fabric break down faster, cut it into small strips before composting.

Hemp – 2 weeks

Similar to linen, hemp clothing breaks down quickly in a healthy compost pile and returns to the soil from which it came. Hemp is becoming a popular material for everything from tees to tote bags and is valued for its low environmental impact. One hectare of hemp can draw down 10.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air when grown using organic, regenerative farming techniques.

Denim – 10 to 12 months

While the original denim is made from 100% cotton, it takes a little longer to break down because of its thicker and denser construction. Before composting those worn-out jeans, check that they are made from pure cotton and don’t contain synthetic materials. Lee and Levi’s are two brands that sell 100% cotton jeans, though the cotton is not yet organic.

Bamboo, Soy, Pine, and Lyocell

These modern man-made fabrics are produced from processing plant-derived cellulose via the use of chemicals in a closed-loop system. While some estimate that pure bamboo viscose takes a year or more to break down, there is very little data available on the true biodegradability of these fabrics. Many of the cellulose fabrics produced today are mixed with synthetic fibers to make them stronger and help them to hold their shape. To make your purchases more sustainable, look for garments that are made from 100% plant-derived cellulose and colored with low-impact dyes.

Recycled Polyester

Polyester is a synthetic fabric that currently accounts for around 52% of the textile industry. Unfortunately, it takes between 20 and 200 years to break down. To tackle this pressing problem, some manufacturers are recovering used polyester and spinning it into a recycled polyester fabric for use in swimwear and activewear. While recycled polyester can’t be composted, it can be taken to a fabric recycler to be rewoven over and over again.

Tips for Disposing of Your Worn-Out Clothes

 Finding clothing from natural materials is easier than ever thanks to sustainable stores like Faerie’s Dance. But what do you do once you’ve worn the clothes for years and they are literally falling apart? After reusing, repairing, and repurposing your clothes, check that they’re 100% natural and toxin-free, remove any metal rivets and zippers, and add the fabric to the compost pile.

In landfills, clothes produce methane (28 times more warming than carbon dioxide over 20 years) rather than break down quickly with the help of microbes. By composting your well-worn, natural fabric clothing yourself, you will not only have complete control over the ingredients that go into your compost pile, but you’ll have rich organic matter for the garden (or the local organic hemp farm) and the cycle can start all over again.

Garments that are not quite right often get discarded and replaced. However, with a little know-how and a willingness to try, you can transform these pieces into something you love! Learn three easy ways to mend your clothes, fall back in love with them, and reduce your contribution to landfills.

1. Take Up Hems

Unless you have your clothing made specially to order, it’s likely you have something that doesn’t quite fit — a golden opportunity for learning to take up the hem.

To shorten a garment (usually pants), you’ll need:

• A piece of chalk or soap
• A measuring tape
• Thread the same color as the fabric
• A needle or sewing machine
• Scissors
• Iron and/or sewing pins

Step 1: Put the garment on and mark the desired length with the piece of chalk or soap.

Step 2: Measure the length of the hem to be taken up to ensure an even hem on both sides.

Step 3: Iron the crease to create a sharp line and secure the fold with sewing pins.

Step 4: Hand- or machine-sew a double row of stitches around 1 inch from the bottom to secure the folded length firmly in place.

If the garment is far too long to begin with, you might need to cut it two inches from the desired length before folding the hem twice and sewing the hem by hand or machine.

2. Mend Holes and Gaps in Seams

Another common issue you might find with your clothes is a gap that appears in a seam — either because the thread was accidentally broken (when pulling on tight leggings, for example) or because their was a minor defect at the seam in production. (Even high-quality clothes are sewn by humans operating a sewing a machine, and anyone can have an occasional bad day.) This technique cannot be used for worn seams, such as a crotch, as you’ll need to use a patch instead.

To mend a seam, you will need:

• Thread the same color as the seam
• A needle or sewing machine
• Scissors

Step 1: Turn the garment inside out.

Step 2: Sew over the broken section twice to reinforce the seam.

Step 3: Tie the ends of the new thread to the old thread to stop any further “undoing” and close the hole.

3. Patches: Iron-on and appliqué

Small holes in clothing can rarely be fixed by sewing one side of the hole to the other. The pulling will stretch the garment out of shape and can break the delicate threads around the hole. Instead, you can cover the hole with “visible” mending in the form of an iron-on patch or appliqué. 

Iron-On Mending Fabric

Applying iron-on mending fabric is the simplest way to mend a tear or hole because it doesn’t involve any sewing at all. You’ll need:

• Iron-on mending fabric in the same color as the garment – or a funky complementing color or pattern if you want to make it stand-out. This is fun on pants or as patches on sleeves.
• Fabric scissors
• An iron
• Aluminum foil

Step 1: Cut a section of iron-on mending fabric a little larger than the hole or tear. Round the edges for an easier transfer.

Step 2: Put the mending fabric glue side up underneath a tear or over a hole.

Step 3: Preheat the iron on the “cotton” setting for five minutes.

Step 4: Cover the area of fabric with aluminum foil to prevent sticking and press the iron over the patch for 30 seconds or until the section of fabric is firmly attached.

Appliqué

Appliqué is similar to an iron-on patch except that it is attached with thread rather than glue.

For needle turn appliqué, you will need:

• An appliqué patch in the same fabric as the garment
• Appliqué pins
• 100wt thread that matches the garment
• #10 sharps needle
• Chalk or soap for marking

Step 1: Use the chalk or soap to draw a line where the patch will be stitched.

Step 2: Pin the design over the hole.

Step 3: Thread the needle and tie a knot at the end of the thread.

Step 4: Enter from the back of the patch to hide the knot and sew the patch to the garment, tucking the patch under the line and making alternating tiny stitches in the patch and the garment.

Step 5: Once the patch is sewn on, take the thread through to the back and tie it off on the inside of the garment.

The Most Sustainable Wardrobe

It has been said that the most sustainable wardrobe you can get is the one that you already own, and when you add mending to the picture, your current wardrobe can suddenly become much more exciting! 

If you’re exploring ways to become more conscious with your clothing and accessories, we invite you to check out the full range of sustainable, ethically-made fashion and jewelry at Faerie’s Dance. Our curated collections of clothing are made with years of wear in mind and many of our necklaces and earrings are recycled!

For more tips on living sustainably in style, read the rest of the posts on our blog.

2020 is finally over, and here’s hoping that 2021 will be a better year overall! At Faerie’s Dance, we love to start the year with a clean, fresh home so we feel relaxed and refreshed after a hard day’s work selling organic clothing. Of course, since we’re focused on green living, the harsh chemicals and synthetic fragrances of commercial cleaners definitely aren’t our thing.

Natural Citric Acid to the Rescue

It’s not just the composition of commercial cleaners that poses a health or environmental problem. According to current recycling data, we’ve dumped more and more plastic waste into the environment over the years. This is quite a dire situation considering that plastic waste materials are non-biodegradable, dangerous to wildlife, cause waterways to clog, and are just an eyesore. Plastics can come from anywhere, and that includes containers for our household cleaners.

But what if we told you there’s actually a way to reduce or even eliminate using commercially sold household cleaners? That means there are fewer containers that will go to the waste disposal facility, at least from your household. But then, imagine if all homes follow suit. Now that’s doing the environment a favor! Not to mention the money that you’ll be saving.

Making your own safe, eco-friendly, and affordable household cleaner is easy. You only need to use citric acid. Now, before running to the drugstore or some laboratory supply store, you might check your cupboard, fruit basket, or refrigerator first. That’s because you can find citric acid in fruits like lemons, oranges, and limes. It’s what gives these fruits their tart, sour taste.

How to Create and Use Your Very Own Homemade Cleaner

Get rid of your commercially bought cleaner—which contains harsh chemicals—and create your own citrus-scented all-purpose cleaner. Here’s how:

1. In a 1-quart measuring jar, mix a quart of leftover peels from citrus fruits. Rinds from lemons, oranges, grapefruit, or lime are perfect. Fill the jar with white vinegar.
2. Close tightly and place in a sunny place. Leave the jar for around two weeks to complete the infusion process.
3. Strain the liquid into a clean, sealed jar. Don’t throw the peels; you can use them as compost.
4. To use, pour half a cup of this infused vinegar to a spray bottle. Add 2 cups of clean tepid water, 20 drops of lemon essential oil, and a generous squeeze of citrus fruit. Close and shake well.

Here’s another recipe in making an all-purpose homemade citric acid cleaner

1. Combine vinegar, baking soda, and hot water in a bucket.
2. Add the juice of half a lemon, orange, or any citrus fruit. You can also drip the rinds in.
3. Stir well until everything is well mixed and the baking soda is dissolved. Allow to cool.
4. Transfer your homemade cleaner to a spray bottle or squeeze bottle.

Use your effective, nice-smelling, eco-friendly cleaner the way you use your commercial cleaner. Spray onto the surface to be cleaned and wipe with a clean damp cloth. The citric acid eats away stubborn dirt and stains while leaving a citrusy scent.

Your homemade cleaner may also smell like vinegar, especially if the brand of vinegar you used is quite strong. Don’t worry though because the vinegar scent rapidly dissipates. What remains is a fresh citrus scent.

WARNING: avoid using this citric acid cleaner on tiles, countertops, and other surfaces made of natural stone. The citric acid can dissolve the calcium carbonate in the substrate. Frequently using this cleaner on natural stone surfaces may cause pitting and holes.

Other Home Uses of Natural Citric Acid

Your homemade citric acid all-purpose cleaner is just one of the hundreds of ways you can use citrus fruits for household purposes. Here are a few more ideas:

• Cutting boards are havens for parasites found in meat, fruits, vegetables, and other foodstuff. Fortunately, you can easily sanitize and deodorize smelly cutting boards the eco-friendly way. Cut a lemon in half and rub it all over the cutting board, squeezing as you go. The juice cleans and disinfects the board naturally, and you don’t have to worry about dangerous chemicals contaminating your board.

• Cutting boards are havens for parasites found in meat, fruits, vegetables, and other foodstuff. Fortunately, you can easily sanitize and deodorize smelly cutting boards the eco-friendly way. Cut a lemon in half and rub it all over the cutting board, squeezing as you go. The juice cleans and disinfects the board naturally, and you don’t have to worry about dangerous chemicals contaminating your board.

• Cutting boards are havens for parasites found in meat, fruits, vegetables, and other foodstuff. Fortunately, you can easily sanitize and deodorize smelly cutting boards the eco-friendly way. Cut a lemon in half and rub it all over the cutting board, squeezing as you go. The juice cleans and disinfects the board naturally, and you don’t have to worry about dangerous chemicals contaminating your board.

• Cutting boards are havens for parasites found in meat, fruits, vegetables, and other foodstuff. Fortunately, you can easily sanitize and deodorize smelly cutting boards the eco-friendly way. Cut a lemon in half and rub it all over the cutting board, squeezing as you go. The juice cleans and disinfects the board naturally, and you don’t have to worry about dangerous chemicals contaminating your board.

• Slice a couple of lemons, limes, and oranges. Put them in a small bowl filled with water. Add in a teaspoon or two of white vinegar. Put the bowl in your microwave and cook for five minutes. Open the microwave, let it sit for a minute, and wipe any spills. Now your microwave smells fresh and clean!

• Removing stains and soap scum from your bathroom is easy. Simply sprinkle some salt on the area. Rub the salt using half a lemon, squeezing as you scrub the salt. For tougher stains, use a bathroom scrub after squeezing lemon juice on the stain. Let dry and wash away with plain water.

• The tarnish from your heirloom copper pots, cups, and ornaments can easily be removed. Squeeze the juice of a single lemon into a bowl. Add a teaspoon of lemon and stir until the salt is dissolved. Dip a piece of cloth and rub the tarnish off the copper. Use gentle pressure to avoid scratching the copper.

Conclusion

Using natural citric acid is an awesome way to recycle or repurpose your extra citrus fruits. They are all-natural and biodegradable. Clean, sanitize, disinfect, and freshen up your home the safe and eco-friendly way.

Faerie’s Dance published this article with assistance from Lillian Connors, Senior Content Developer at ACT-ENVIRO. Here’s a little about her.

Throughout Lillian’s career, she always looked for ways to contribute to the environment in recycling efforts, while providing valuable information with her written articles. She’s deeply into green practices, cherishing the notion that sustainability not only makes us far less dependent on others regarding how we live and do business but also contributes to our planet being a better place to live on. When she is not trying to improve the things around her (and herself, for that matter), she likes to lose herself in a good book and sip on an occasional appletini.

Fast Fashion and the Destruction of Developing Countries

FaeriesDance.com ships everything through the US Postal Service.  Both UPS and Fedex have better tracking information and more integrated web-based solutions which would make switching to one of those carriers faster and more efficient for our office staff.  Unfortunately, there are 3 big downfalls to both of those options. 

First, both UPS and Fedex are more expensive than the US Postal Service when shipping small items to individuals.  If you’re shipping large freight and/or mostly to business addresses, that is not true.  But for us, the good old USPS is cheaper for more than 95% of our everyday shipping needs – including overnight.

Second, while this may seem odd, USPS is actually faster for standard shipping than either of the other carriers. Priority Mail is a standard mailing option that generally takes 2-3 business days to anywhere in the country.  Faster, cheaper shipping generally makes happier customers, so those are both good points for us.  And despite the jokes often heard about their reputation, we’ve not had a single package “lost in the mail” within the US since we’ve been in business.

Finally, although UPS and Fedex have been “greening” their trucks and delivery methods, the fact is that the US Postal Service visits almost every household in America every day anyway.  I live in a community with 89 homes.  USPS delivers to at least 80 of them every business day, whereas I’ve often seen the UPS and Fedex trucks come into the community to deliver a single package.  I have to believe that a lot more fuel is being wasted on “special trips” to single homes here and there rather than just adding a package to a destination that is already being covered.  (Though in truth, I have no data to back this up – but it seems sensible to me.)

This year we’re trying to ship more items in the cardboard envelops rather than the Tyvek bags whenever possible.  Besides the flat rate cardboard being slightly less expensive to ship, it is easier to reuse and recycle.  We are happy to point out that all of the USPS shipping supplies have achieved the environmental cradle-to-cradle certification for sustainability and health concerns.

Also, don’t worry if your package comes with some packing materials or even bubble wrap.  All of our packing materials (except the recycled tissue paper we wrap undergarments in) are reused from shipments we get in.  We like wrapping purses with metal zippers as well as jewelry in bubble wrap.  Even though we don’t use very much, early on we found we wanted more bubble wrap than we were getting.  Then a local tech company moved their offices and I got a great idea.  After the move we asked them what they were going to do with their packing supplies.  They were reusing boxes, which is good, but they were going to toss out the mounds of bubble wrap and packing materials they had purchased just for the move.  Viola!  We scored enough bubble wrap to last us for years to come and diverted it from becoming a big landfill mess.  We also bring all packing peanuts we get in to a local mailing center for reuse.  We hope you reuse the packing materials you get from us as well.  Most of these things can be reused again and again.
We’re happy to hear suggestions on packing and shipping.  One person suggested we try Freecycle to get reused packing supplies.  We’ve posted want ads, but thus far haven’t had any response.  We’re always looking for new ideas to minimize waste though; so keep the suggestions coming. 

Happy New Year everyone!

November 15 is America Recycles Day.  (Of course, looking at the name, I immediately wonder why there isn’t a World Recycles Day.)  In 2009, I wonder why we need this.  By now, recycling should be a gimme.  There are recycling drop off stations in almost every city and town; many of us now enjoy curbside recycling; and there are tons of information sources from Real Simple and E-Magazine to the Environmental Protection Agency on how to recycle just about anything.  In addition, there are fabulous groups like Freecycle and resources such as Craigslist where you can sell, swap or just give away your old stuff to someone who might want or need it.

November 15 isn’t the one day in the year when you should recycle.  It’s a day marked out to evaluate how you are doing on recycling.  Let’s all try to improve recycling efforts both at home and in our workplace.  Of course, the less you use, the less you need to recycle.  Maybe November 15 is the day you finally buy that reusable Starbucks cup (or the equivalent at your favorite coffee shop), start packing your child’s lunch sandwiches in Tupperware instead of zip lock bags or put out a bin in the office to collect cans.  (Hint: if you don’t want to recycle them yourself, you can often find a Girl Scout or Boy Scout troop leader that will pick them up for you.)

Whatever you do, make one change starting now.  Add one small step to live greener.  You may be surprised by how good it feels.

I had planned on doing a post about eco-wrapping later this holiday season.  Today I was going to write a bit about the first ever Eco-Model, Rachel Avalon, who won the Project Green Search eco-model competition.  I had the chance to meet Rachel very briefly last week at the first ever Green Bloggers Convention.  (On a side note, it’s thrilling to see all these new environmentally-focused events popping up.  More and more people are taking action to dance lightly on our planet.)

To my surprise, while I was looking for an introduction on Rachel, I found this fantastic little video that she produced on… you guessed it… eco-friendly gift wrapping. So here’s Rachel introducing herself better than I ever could with some awesome green holiday tips.

In addition to all of Rachel’s great ideas, one of my personal favorites is wrapping gifts with the Sunday comics section.  If you happen to have any old maps lying around, they also make great wrapping paper.

Reusable gift bags are good in a pinch as well.  Although many of them are made from virgin materials, well made ones can be used again and again.  I’ve had some holiday gift bags pass back and forth between family members for years.  Just fold them after use and store them for next year.

We offer a selection of tree-free gift bags made from a mix of kenaf, hemp, sugar cane, flax and recycled materials that will last through many gift exchanges.

If your child is asked to sell gift wrap through a school or event fundraiser, be sure to mention to the coordinator that you’d like to see recycled gift wrap on offer next year.  Many of the fundraising companies don’t receive a lot of requests or feedback, so letting them know what you would purchase can really make a difference.  If you have a chance to write or e-mail the company directly, take it.

As a final thought, if you’re purchasing any holiday gifts from FaeriesDance.com, you can always have us gift wrap them for you using 100% recycled apparel boxes (65% post-consumer) with 100% post-consumer recycled tissue paper and 100% post-industrial recycled kraft gift wrap finished with natural raffia ribbon.  New for this holiday, we just got in this festive tree motif recycled kraft wrapping paper design.