Sustainably Sumptuous

We are consumers. We can all be environmentalists. Drink clean water, breathe fresh air and use our buying power to make the world a better place.

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Buying Decisions. Buy Less.

I support specific companies, designers and shops... I encourage Minimalism, quality pieces, and proper disposal of an item that no longer serves the needs of your lifestyle or wardrobe, and I hope that you do your own research and find brands you love that are worth your buying power.

In the True Cost documentary, they interviewed big name stores and still there is so much room for improvement!  I would recommend not buying anything from a department store or Mall unless it supports the global economy or local economy in a healthy way.  I know that there are varying degrees to making good decisions, and sometimes making an inferior choice in one area of our life allows us to make better, more impactful choices in a different area.  I am not here to guilt you or make you feel bad, but I want you to be informed that how and where you spend your money does make a difference.  Perhaps, you realize you need less than you thought you did, congratulations, that is a stepping stone for minimalism. 

We can pressure companies to treat factory workers better.  In the film, it discusses the history of the production of clothing and how a majority of it is outsourced. We live in a global world and it is foolish to ignore essential human rights not provided-a livable wage and safe working conditions.  The economic benefit is peanuts compared to the damage we are doing to the environment because we want a five dollar T-shirt at Forever 21. 

The garment worker interviewed in the documentary begins crying when discussing the following: not being able to see her daughter, why she is a garment worker (to pay for her daughter’s education so she will have better options than to be a garment worker), and how she and her peers make this clothing but it isn’t worth it.  She hates thinking about the people buying it because workers are injured or lose their lives sewing garments.  There you have it, even the workers, most whom are women, do not want you to buy the garments they are making because even they understand that purchasing power is power for change.  

https://truecostmovie.com/learn-more/buying-better/

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Human Rights and Environmental Impact

There are three main topics covered in the documentary True Cost, now streaming on Amazon Prime and Netflix.  The main points are Human Rights, Environmental Impact and Buying Decisions. My last post will be about where and what we purchase and tie all of these posts and blog together. I urge you to look this documentary up and watch it in its entirety.   Invite your super fashionista and environmental lovers crowd, because it is definitely one you will want to discuss afterwards!

You may have heard that the board game Monopoly was originally created by a woman to showcase the evils of capitalism, and it is true.  (See Smithsonian link below).  This drive for profit by CEOs in the fashion industry perpetuate human slavery and a big loss for the environment.  

Workers are not allowed to unionize, aren’t able to see their families or children, and barely get paid.  If they do receive income, it is barely livable.  They are beaten by the management.  It sounds crazy to write about in this day and age, a modern slavery just to create garments that a society wears once or twice before discarding? It is because buying a new item is so easy. 

There is a large impact on the environment to plant more cotton, ignore water waste/usage and chemical waste and other processes that include leather treatment and dying fabric.  Don’t forget about textile waste! This also produces greenhouse gases sitting in a landfill.  

All of these issues show that the companies and factories are not being held accountable for the impact they have on the environment, and people continue to buy clothing on a weekly or monthly basis.  How do we stop it? See my next, post: Buying Decisions.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/monopoly-was-designed-teach-99-about-income-inequality-180953630/

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The Bengaluru garment workers who stitched your branded clothes have probably still not been paid

Small strikes over unpaid wages continue to erupt in garment hub that saw massive protests last year.

This article is a teaser for my last two posts, but also to emphasize the importance of shopping local when possible.  You help your local community when you support businesses that support social justice, social reform, minneapolis(or your city’s) arts and music and are POC or women owned businesses. Buying something that isn’t brand new helps remove your money from the fast fashion stream.

My favorite place to shop is at B. Resale!  They won Best Used Clothing Store from CityPages in 2012, and this year they won the award for Best Jewelry finds (2017). I don’t have a lot of jewelry, but two pairs of my favorite earrings are from this shop. 

To touch back on ‘Minimalism”, the idea is that we create less waste in all areas of our lives, and this applies to clothing and the very act of shopping.  Shopping usually requires something to carry your purchase, and if you forget a bag, you will be carrying it in your arms when you leave this store.  I am A-okay with that because it is ok to learn a lesson the hard way (bring a tote or reusable bag). 

Plastic bags don’t decompose and get stuck in our waterways, and soon a lot of Minneapolis will not be allowed to have plastic bags anyways! For more information on the plastic bag ban, I saved you the work of searching!

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/news/WCMSP-177404 

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Donate or Discard?

Are you participating in some spring cleaning, garage saling, or a minimalism project? It is really easy to discard your items all in the same spot, but here are some other options.

The most lucrative is to consign your nice stuff. Id say pick ten of your best items and then bring them to buffalo exchange, b.resale or My sister’s closet!  Below is the link for “buff-ex,” as i like to call them if you don’t live in the twin cities/minneapolis area. 

https://www.buffaloexchange.com/ 

To me, the most socially conscious choice is to donate your clothing that is not consignable but still lots of life left to a shelter that is going to give the items to someone who needs them for free. You can donate to the salvation army or goodwill, but I prefer to call shelters in the area and see if what I am trying to donate is something that they want.  Usually the answer is yes.  This helps our local communities!

For items that are in disrepair, or unwearable, I would recommend donating to an H&M store.  Every H&M store takes washed clothing so it can be resold, reused or recycled.  They do this for free and accept clothing even if it wasn’t purchased at H&M.  This keeps clothes out of landfills. Textile Waste is the number two contributor to green house gases so anything we can do to limit our environmental footprint as we clean up our own personal space is better for the planet.  

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Bel Kazan

Belinda Kazanci is my all time favorite designer.  I have only recently begun to consign any of the dresses I purchased of hers from 5 years ago to free up space and hopefully reinvest in a new piece this summer.  She refers to a lot of her pieces as a vacation in a dress and it is true.  You feel like you should have an entourage photographing your every move because you feel so pretty.  If it were appropriate for my life and life activities I would only wear Bel Kazan clothes all day every day, but it is a little dressy.  

Taken from her website, “BEL KAZAN is universally flattering, elegant, comfortable, and globally conscious.”  It is true, her clothing is produced in an open air factory and she lets the workers find creative things to do with leftover scraps of fabric like make baby clothes or dolls for their children. 

Open air factory.  Let those three words sink in for a bit, because when I discuss Human Rights of garment workers and Environmental Impact of fast fashion, this is going to really sink in how wonderful it is for Belinda to operate her business this way.  

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Minimalism

Oh, you know I had to discuss this.  Minimalism has really taken off as a social trend and the only issues I see with it is when people fail to properly dispose of their belongings... but I will cover that in a different post. 

The two topics related to Minimalism are related to our clothing.  The first one being a capsule wardrobe, which is usually composed of about 30 pieces of functional interchangeable clothing.  Fashion bloggers discuss how they wear the same stuff week to week during a season, and it makes sense, because I do too! Some people even have less than 30 items!  This number doesn’t include shoes and accessories, but the usual recommendation is a dozen, total.  Not a dozen shoes, a dozen scarves, etc. Instead I have 2-3 scarves, shoes, and 1-2 different hats depending on the season. 

I highly encourage you to google this subject on your own or look for the #capsulewardrobe on social media because there are lots of examples!  

If you really enjoy a challenge, try project 333.  The premise is 33 items for 3 months.  The challenge here is that it includes everything, except for the things you wear every single day.  There are some rules and a few exceptions to the rules.  For example, if something is in need of repair, you should repair it, properly discard it or replace it with something that you love.

One thing I have learned with replacing items is to not rush into replacing items. It is ok to go without something, you are more likely to find exactly what you are looking for if you are patient.  The additional burden of creativity when you have ones less item is that your style changes a little, but you may decide that your missing piece to be replaced is now something entirely different!  I have really enjoyed dusters and crop dusters because it is such a glamorous layering piece, and I think I may be looking for one more...

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Water Use and High Efficiency

This is a topic close to my heart because I hate doing my own dishes and I grew up hearing that running the dishwasher uses a lot of water. False!  Running water while manual washing or having water to suds up your dishes and then rinse them off uses more water than your wash cycle in the automated dishwasher.  You will experience even better results in a newer, high efficiency dishwasher.1

This has a big impact on overall water use within a home and the same concept applies to handwashing clothing and washing machine. 2 I hope that if you hear anyone make that excuse you can correct them because it is a myth that has been perpetuated for far too long. 

    (1)        Richter, C. P. Automatic dishwashers: efficient machines or less efficient consumer habits? Int. J. Consum. Stud. 2010, 34 (2), 228–234.

(2)        Hartline, N. L.; Bruce, N. J.; Karba, S. N.; Ruff, E. O.; Sonar, S. U.; Holden, P. A. Microfiber Masses Recovered from Conventional Machine Washing of New or Aged Garments. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2016, 50 (21), 11532–11538.

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If you still had questions from the last post about recycling, here is some more information! However, the topic for right now is Household Hazardous Waste. 

The improper disposal of HHW would be pouring glass cleaner or used car oil down the drain, onto the ground, into storm sewers, or into your weekly trash pickup.  

A popular yearly event for spring cleaning, and clearing hazardous household waste is Earth day and there are often additional free drop of sites to accept items sometimes difficult to get rid of.  This is to encourage their proper disposal methods, which is a win for residents and a win for the environment. 

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Hennepin County Recycling and Composting

http://www.hennepin.us/residents/recycling-hazardous-waste/organics-recycling

I live in Hennepin County and grew up in Washington County, so growing up in the suburbs compared to living in Minneapolis provides me with lots of options and opinions.  I love living in Minneapolis. 

One of my neighbors is a family of four.  They have two kids and have a recycling bin, trash bin and compost bin.  At the end of the week, the compost bin almost always full every week, the trash bin is barely half full, and recycling has stayed about the same.  

Everything that is in the compost is not being taken to HERC or to a landfill.  The landfill.  According to ecomyth.org, composting is still more environmentally friendly than sending things down the garbage disposal.  

The best way to reduce waste headed to the compost bin is to waste less food! For my neighbors, having the compost and seeing that pile of food waste made them more mindful of the food they were eating and throwing away!

My personal  “life hack” for composting in my apartment is a little odd, but I still participate!  I keep my compost in the freezer.  I don’t accumulate a lot of waste at home since I live alone, and I am not eating here that often.  When my little brown bag gets full of compost I take it out to the compost bin for the building I live in.  

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Girlfriend Collective

Nanny. College Student.  Cat and Dog Companion.  Student. Rock Climber.  Yogi. Gym rat. Hiking buddy.  Outdoor Enthusiast. Environmentalist.  I am sure I can find more words to describe myself, but like most physically active women, I wear a lot of hats!  I am constantly transitioning from one activity to the next and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  

Which is why I am so thankful I tried Girlfriend Collective’s yoga pants.  They are the best athletic pant I have ever worn.  They move with me and they never restrict my movement.  After a quick hand wash, they dry in less time it takes for me to catch some sleep overnight!

It gets better! About 25 plastic bottles are recycled into PET (polyethylene terephthalate) to produce these in a facility where the workers are treated well. The origin of the standard #1 recycled plastic is Taiwan, and then they are sent to vietnam to be processed and turned into fabric!  

You can learn more about their recycling practices here: http://girlfriend.com/recycling