“Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.”

Dalai Lama

Could anyone use an upbeat story this week? How about this: a climate solution that can revolutionize the clothing industry. I want to fill you in on a cool process I just learned about that is making fashion more sustainable. By the way, I read about this on reasons to be cheerful, a website I like to visit for positive stories.

But first, a reminder of why this matters. The fashion industry is responsible for about 10% of the harmful emissions causing our rising temperatures. That, and a mind-boggling amount waste. Consider this for a second: The average American tosses 70 pounds of clothing each year! This is the definition of unsustainable. 

A Swedish company called Circulose is turning the typical fashion production cycle on its head. Instead of the usual linear process of making new clothing over and over, they have created a circular process.

Making fashion more sustainable

Lots of companies are using recycled materials for their clothing, which is great. The problem is, most aren’t transparent about what percentage of the fabric is virgin vs. recycled. Circulose is the first company making fiber that is from 100% recycled material. Through a “closed-loop, chemical recycling process”, they can produce 120 million tons of material each year. This is enough fabric to make 150 million new t-shirts!

So how does it work? They collect used clothing and fabric scraps, shred those materials, then use a chemical process to create a slurry (yum!). Next, they remove any contaminants, like plastic (including polyester). The end result is cellulose, a biodegradable, organic polymer. The cellulose is then dried into sheets, and sent off to textile producers to make new fabrics like viscose, modal, and lyocell.

This is exciting, and gives me hope that we can reduce not only the energy used to create new textiles, but also the massive amount of clothing waste we dump in landfills. No doubt, there are other companies working on this solution. Imagine if this process takes off and begins to dominate the fashion world? 

Important caveat – even with a circular process, we still very much need to reduce the amount we produce and buy each year. So let’s not look at recycled fabric as a license to continue on with business as usual, but as a helpful tool.

When it comes to clothing – and any other consumer product – the formula to help solve climate change and improve sustainability is fairly simple: produce less, buy less, use longer, recycle more.

What can we do?

People always want to know what they can do to make a difference with climate change. One place to look for that answer is in our closets. We can buy less, put more thought into each thing we buy, and look for companies using good climate practices and/or fabrics made with recycled materials. The more consumer demand there is for these products, the bigger the carrot there will be for companies to change how they operate. 

Investing in fewer, higher-quality, more sustainably-made pieces is good for our climate and has the added benefit of simplifying our lives. Win-win.

Let’s do something about climate change. Learn about it. Talk about it. Help solve it.