Eco-Friendly Ways to Buy Clothing
This past weekend, I went to a Consignment shop in nearby neighborhood with my fiance. I used to always hate going into places with used clothing when I was a child because it was not the “hip” thing to do. She has always loved to go into Consignment shops to find cool fabrics to make things with.
This really got me thinking about the the environmental impacts that clothes could be have. So, I decided to do a little research on the topic of clothing as it relates to the environment. I found an interesting article from Organic Consumers that talks about the effects of being wasteful when it comes to buying clothing:
Like most things you buy today, clothes are intended to phase out of fashion. As we attempt to keep up with fashion trends we end up accumulating more and more in our closets. Spurring on new buying, clothing prices have dropped 25%, and the volume of clothing we purchase has increased 75% between 1992 and 2002.
The worst part about all the clothes bought is not necessarily how the clothes are made, but the clothes hangers. Wire hangers cannot be recycled because the quality and quantity of metal contained in each hanger make it not worth recycling. Even if they decide to use wooden hangers, they are usually treated with dangerous chemicals.
Its pretty scary of all of the negative aspects associated with buying new clothing from retailers. After giving it some thought, I determined a few ways that we as the consumer can make a difference.
- Buying used clothing
- Buying Sustainable Clothing
- Choose quality over quantity
As with most people, I don’t see myself buying used clothing very often especially when it comes to business clothing. But, buying used clothing can be a huge savings benefit. There were clothes a little as a $1 while I was at the Consignment shop. I was really shocked at how many designer brands and new looking clothes they had. It is definitely worth considering before making your next trip to the mall to buy new clothing.
Another alternative is to buy eco-friendly clothes. A local new station in Minnesota wrote an article about Eco-Friendly Clothing
as an alternative when buying clothing. Birch Clothing is a small company that sells items produced from sustainable and recycle materials. They also use fair labor standards and produce their clothes in America. I have purchased from a similar company to Birch Clothing called American Apparel in the past and have been pleased with the quality and comfort of their clothes. Stores like these have slightly higher prices than traditional clothing stores, but are worth considering if you want to go green when buying clothes.
My favorite choice of the three is to just buy higher quality clothes in lower quantities. It’s that simple. I have been following this philosophy for years now. You can spend much less on clothing because you will be buying far less clothes and they will last you much longer. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to buy the designer brands and spend huge amounts of money to get good quality. There are many high quality clothing brands that are moderately priced. The biggest thing is to stay away from buying clothes that are trendy as you will probably not wear them very long. If you buy clothes that fits well and has a simple design, you can’t go wrong.
Who is T. Boone Pickens?
On a local radio station this morning, I heard them mention a guy by the name of T. Boone Pickens. They mentioned that he has a plan to move our country away from oil and start using more renewable resources like natural gas and wind energy. I decided to do a little more research and found out more about him and what his plan is.
T. Boone Pickens is an American entrepreneur that was born in Holdenville, Oklahoma. He attend the Oklahoma State University and graduated with a degree in geology. After working for a petroleum company for several years, he founded Mesa Petroleum. He grew his company by acquiring smaller oil companies and became one of the largest independent oil companies. Since then, he has founded BP Capital Management, a company that originally ran two hedge funds largely vested in oil and natural gas companies. Currently, his company runs the BP Capital Energy fund that owns large portions in Suncor Energy (Sunoco), ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum.
According to his website http://www.pickensplan.com, he wants to reduce our dependency on foreign oil by replacing it will cleaner sources, like natural gas. He also wants to start investing in wind farms throughout the mid-west. Areas ranging from North Dakota down to Texas have some of the highest wind speeds throughout the country.
His plan seems really nice, but what is his motivation for it? It seems that he only has interest natural gas and wind energy to make more money. For the moment though, nobody really knows for sure what his true intentions by proposing this plan. He has even paid for a tv commercial to advertise his plan where he has said “I’ve been an oilman my whole life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of”.
He said in his commercial that he will be release more details in the coming weeks. I will keep an eye out for any new details about his plan.
This Week in News: July 10th
Wind Energy
As reported by the Telegraph, the UK government proposed a plan to expanding their wind energy program to include 7000 new wind turbines. The government is committing itself to producing 15% of all of it’s energy from renewable resources like wind energy by the year 2020. They believe that they may be able to achieve producing 1/3 of the UK’s energy use through wind energy by 2020. This plan is a huge step in the right direction for the UK.
Delmarva Power is adding more wind energy to its portfolio by signing a long-term contract with Bluewater Wind. In a press release by Delmarva Power, the state of Delaware is requiring them to produce 20% of their energy from renewable sources by the year 2019. This contract is significant in that Bluewater Wind will be getting the majority of its wind energy from off-shore wind farms. This is one of the first of its kind throughout the country. The contract will be a 25-year deal and wind energy will be provided to their customers as soon as 2012.
Photo by laurenatclemson.
Solar Energy
General Motors will be building the largest rooftop solar station at their largest factory in Europe, located in Zaragoza of Northern Spain. The AFP is reporting that it will be a 50 million euro project that will be the largest of its kind throughout the world. Zaragoza is a good location for the solar station because of its hot summers that get into the 100’s. GM’s building will rely soly on the rooftop system and even have extra energy to push back into the grid.
