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Report from the 2010 RITE-conference

At the RITE-conference in London several of the speakers broached themes that are relevant for Textile Waste as a Resource. Hopefully what they bring up can be helpful.

Fashion in the future by Vicky Murray, Forum for the Future

Fashion Futures 2025 was launched in February this year and offers up scenarios for how we will cope with the accelerating changes around us, especially the climate changes and the scarcity of resources. How will legislation shape the fashion business? How much disposable income will we have? What technological advancements will come about? These scenarios are some they have developed:
“Community Couture” – prices are astronomically high, so clothes have multi-functions like generating electricity, food has become more important than fibers, there is a severe water-crisis so new clothes are out of reach for most, repair is vital and communities pool their resources and buy collectively, thrift-markets are where clothes get bought and everyone uses the community launderettes.
“Techno chic” – where we find Cradle to Cradle thinking, voting is on-line on what goes in to production by designers, body-scanning before garment-purchase, clothes-leasing and wash is collected by community services. Already in Paris there is a café where one can rent sewing-machines.
“Slow is Beautiful” was one of the others one can see more about on-line. Vicky explained how they “track weak signals” and try to assess which will have an impact.

 Influencing consumer behavior by Sara Giorgi, Brook Lyndhurst

Her topic was influencing consumer behavior, and the hypothesis was this is easiest around “moments of change”, for example when moving, having a baby, etc. Three key ways of influencing: Encourage, Enable, Engaging and Exemplifying. The two latter involving media-campaigns and celebrity-examples.
It is clear that people do not consider disposal of what they buy when they buy. But if they feel the item is an investment, this links to values and “ethics of care” come in to play. People wash more at 30 degrees and use tumble-dryers less, and there is a desire to give “investment-products” a second life. But she cited that many do not bother to wash under-garments or socks, they just throw them away, this because of the extremely low prices at Primark for “six-packs” of these items (generally £1).
Some successful campaigns were mentioned: “Give up your clothes for GOOD” (with celebrities), and the M&S/Oxfam cooperation… The latter shows that it is easier to get someone to act if they stand to gain something now (a small discount) rather than in the future (larger discount). According to M&S they have saved (until now) 5 million items from landfill. To actually make people change their habits one needs snappy logos and slogans, one needs to make things attractive and novel, when up-cycling one needs to have a new twist.

Textile Waste as an opportunity by Dorothy Maxwell, Global View Sustainability Services

24% is recovered of textile waste, 47% goes to landfill in the UK; and this represents a lot of opportunity in eg corporate and uniform clothing, plus faulty clothing from factories. When it comes to the impacts of different fibers, there is still a need for more information on land-use and water-impacts. She mentioned biodegradable waste (for example wool) that is being discussed within EU. Eco-design is still a niche, but the UK is in the forefront. Clothes are still not designed for disassembly – but this could be more cost-efficient. The “blends-to-blends” (EU-project) machinery that scans and analyses textiles will be ready in January. She also talked about the French system of taxing all clothing items, unless one has a take-back system or disposal alternative – which generates income to deal with the problem. So that France now has a 20% recovery rate.

Tom Podkolinski from the surfer-wear company Finisterre, summarized the sessions rather well: It all boils down to human nature. We are more and more affluent, but we are inefficient. Increase efficiency and move in to the intellectual realm! One can compare it to energy-companies telling their consumers to reduce – and they still make money! Build services, not stuff…

Summaries from the Textile recycling break-out session: Design for recycling and disassembling is just not happening. There are major infra-structure problems. Call to bring back mending and repair-systems.

Conclusions from the consumer behavior break-out session: Celebrities very important as role-models. Suggestion of repair-kits as GWP (gift with purchase). Tax-incentives and googling where clothes end up…