Joanna Lumley OBE ‘Shwopping’ fashion initiative, London, Britain – 26 Apr 2012
M&S transformed a London street to show how it plans to give old clothes a future through its new fashion initiative. M&S filled an entire street in Brick Lane fashion district with the equivalent amount of clothing that we throw into landfill every five minutes – almost 10,000 items.
Photo by Michael Bowles / Rex Features (1702683e)
This week, our fashion expert, Sharon Irvine, says ‘go green’…
With the carrier bag levy being enforced this week it seems that we are finally taking the right steps to be more environmentally friendly.
Although it is a great that we are taking steps in the right direction to save the planet, I feel it is about time that people also began to do something about the problem of throw away fashion.
What many people don’t realise is that never mind the damage we are doing by throwing away that plastic bag what about the damage we are doing by throwing away the t-shirt that was once carried by the plastic bag.
Did you realise that one million tonnes of textiles are thrown away every year and at least fifty per cent of this could be recycled.
Instead of throwing out our unwanted or worn out clothes we should recycle them instead.
Recycling doesn’t necessarily mean throwing them into recycling bins you could also bring them to a charity shop if you have something that is in a wearable condition.
This not only helps the environment but also helps others as people purchase your unwanted clothes.
Marks and Spencer in conjunction with Oxfam are encouraging people to ‘shwop’ and with the help of actress Joanna Lumley they hope to drastically reduce the amount of clothes sent to landfill every day.
Putting your unwanted clothes into the ‘shwop’ bins at M&S gives them a new lease of life in three different ways depending on the condition of the clothes.
If they are in a good wearable condition they are sold and therefore reused.
If they are not in a wearable condition but still ‘saveable’ they are sold to designers who restyle and refashion them into their new collections.
If the garments are neither wearable nor saveable they are sold off in bulk to reprocessing companies who turn them into filling for mattresses or carpet underlay.
We can also help the situation by purchasing some of our clothing from charity shops.
This may not be everyone’s cup of tea but if just a few more of us did this it would not only help our community by giving to charity but it would also cut down on the amount of waste clothing going to landfill.
As many of you know by now I am a fan of vintage clothing and some of my best finds have been purchased in charity shops.
Many people don’t like the idea of second hand clothing but if you consider the vast amount of waste clothing that goes to land fill because of our bad habits we really should be doing something about it.
Speaking from experience I can honestly say that despite being second hand our local charity shops have some really fantastic items, and another great thing is that all of the items are one offs so you are unlikely to meet anyone else with the same outfit as you.
You may also find items of clothing that still have their original labels and therefore brand new.
I always get a buzz from finding a really cool item in a charity shop and get an even bigger buzz when people ask me where I got it.
Next time you consider purchasing that £3.00 t-shirt that you know will only last a few months, which will then be thrown out and end up polluting the environment, why not instead purchase one from your local charity shop or at least consider the environment and recycle instead.