Tee shirts are extremely popular items; they are the corner-stone of ready-to-wear and can easily deliver a strong message. According to “The huffpost”, over 2 billion tee shirts are sold each year, and factories can produce over 7000 pieces a day. There is plenty to recycle! “ A shirt reused saves the environment from a shirt produced”.
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Cotton growing and processing demand considerable quantities of water and energy (often in water-scarce regions). Moreover, it implies big amounts of chemicals, 25% of the world’s pesticide and herbicides are used by the cotton industry.
Eco –conscious consumers might think buying organic items solves the problem, but fibers are of little help when compared to land use and energy needed to make cotton wearable (spinning, washing, dying…). A single tee shirt requires 2700L of water.
Cotton can be recycled after use! In Brief, making our product from old items will keep it longer in use but won’t demand energy, water or chemicals. Nevertheless, when it is eventually discarded, it can be chemically or mechanically recycled into new fabrics such as lyocell or viscose. Meanwhile the “Raw“ item would have lasted 2 or 3 times longer.
We love fashion but it carries a few issues:
- It relies on non-renewable resources
- It uses too much water and chemicals
- It increases green house gas emissions
- It has a negative social impact on workers
If we don’t react the impact could become
unmanageable.
Beside, most garments are estimated to be discarded after seven to ten wears. Fashion waste is a disaster, since more than half of the “fast fashion” production is disposed of in under a year. Resulting in one garbage truck of textiles landfilled or incinerates every second! Unfortunately less than 1% of textile waste is recycled into new clothing. The majority of recycling consists of cascading into lower-value applications such as insulation materials, wiping clothes, etc…
Our ambition is to shift clothing from being disposable to being sustainable. Have garments re-enter the economy after use in order to avoid waste.
This circular economy is based on:
- Low waste and pollution: recycling instead of using virgin materials could considerably reduce the use of non-renewable resources and pollute less.
- Keep material in use: it is estimated that if garments were worn twice as long, green house gas emissions would be 44% lower. Reusing items, keeping them longer in the economy so as to reduce waste.
Nearly 70% of clothes collected in the Triad are reusable yet only 20% is actually resold due to lack of demand. Globally, 460 billion USD value is lost each year to under-used clothing and lack of recycling. We decided to take this opportunity to reuse items so that our planet can regenerate itself.
SUSTAINABILITY
COMES FIRTS !
