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Fabric re-use and recyling for our environment

9/6/2020

Along with many other Bucks WI members I have been spending time during lock-down sewing. Many members set to, making the Scrub Laundry Bags requested by Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust reusing all kinds of cotton fabric that came to hand or which was donated by friends and neighbours. I decided to use up my growing store of bright patterned gent’s cotton shirts purchased from the charity shop bargain rail to make fabric face masks, first of all for the family and more recently for friends and neighbours. According to the internet a close weave fabric is best and the cotton or poly-cotton of shirt fabric is most suitable for hot washing. I have also been mending and altering garments which had been waiting for me to get around to them for ages. Even my teddy bear got a new pair of trousers so he was respectable to sit in the window as part of the teddy bear exercise in lock-down action.

Reusing this accumulated fabric is good for the environment so we can all feel appropriately proud of our activities. I had a search around the internet to see if I could find out a measure of exactly how much CO2 might be saved by reusing cotton fabric but it is hard to get a simple measure or specific amount. The nearest I could find was in a WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) case study report where it calculated that reuse of a cotton T shirt produced a saving of 2.5kg CO2-eq per T-shirt. This methodology is outlined in www.wrap.org.uk/benefitsofreuse. And there are other environmental benefits too; saving energy and resource.
The Benefits of Reuse Case Study: Clothing can be found here
http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Clothing%20reuse_final.pdf

The WRAP organisation was set up in 2000 to promote sustainable waste management and I found lots of other information on their website about textiles including a new Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP) which I need to have a good look at. see http://www.wrap.org.uk/sustainable-textiles/scap
In autumn 2019 Cath attended the NFWI educational Fast Fashion event, organised along with clothing charity TRAID, for WI members to learn more about how to reduce the global impact of clothing and learn more about the true cost of fast fashion. Members were asked to consider different aspects of fast fashion - repairing and mending clothes, clothes production and the throwaway culture and the impact microplastic fibres have on the environment. Cath made a pledge not to purchase anything new for a whole year and I am trying to follow her good example. So far this has worked well, especially now that we can not go out to shop.
I did wonder about the actual term fast fashion meant and found a definition in a UK government report which said that: ‘Fast fashion’ is a term used to describe a new accelerated fashion business model that has evolved since the 1980s. It involves increased numbers of new fashion collections every year, quick turnarounds and often lower prices. Reacting rapidly to offer new products to meet consumer demand is crucial to this business model.
The report Fixing Fashion: clothing consumption and sustainability; Published: 19 February 2019 is very informative and deserves more visibility, its available here
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmenvaud/1952/full-report.html
Finally I wondered what happened to the clothing that we in the UK send to recycling and found the website of a very interesting company Roberts Recycling Ltd which recycles and sends textiles overseas for reuse.

https://www.robertsrecycling.co.uk/news/how-much-co2-is-saved-by-our-textile-recycling-operations/

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Bucks Climate Ambassadors have a cup of coffee online!

9/6/2020

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April 2020 was the first month of national lock-down and it had been necessary to change or to cancel so many events and plans. The Public Affairs team at NFWI had continued to issue information and campaing updates and both Cath Campbell and I accepted their invitation to join other Climate Ambassadors in a national online session. It was a learning experience and I was very impressed with the presentation, conversations and information exchanged.

The session was introduced by Ann Jones and the Public Affairs team provided us with an update on NFWI campaign activity and the team explained how things have changed now that the office is closed and staff are working from home. Although public attention is elsewhere the Public Affairs team have been monitoring the wider environmental sector and shared their summary with us. Lots of climate events have had to change focus, and the COP 26 conference which the UK was going to host in November on behalf of the United Nations Committee on Climate Change is cancelled. There was general agreement that the Climate Ambassadors really need to keep up pressure on our MPs to make sure that the UK takes a prominent leadership role in the meantime and when the next event actually takes place as time is running out.

The NFWI team was working with Friends of the Earth on the plastic waste part of the Environment Bill which was at Committee stage and the WI national campaign about End Plastic Soup was still current and ongoing. The issue of pollution of both micro plastic and larger plastic waste is a great concern to many WI members.

The questions and information shared at this session gave Cath and I lots of links and leads to explore and investigate further. Here are some you might like to view and follow up.

Peat Free April campaign #PeatFreeApril
This concerns the continuing destruction of UK peatlands which offer vital wildlife habitats and storing vast amounts of carbon and the campaign for good labelling on compost packaging.
For more information, find @PeatFreeApril on Twitter or Facebook

Heathrow third runway and climate change.
The Court of Appeal ruled on 27 February 2020 that the decision to allow the expansion was unlawful because it did not take climate commitments into account.
For more information see
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-51646562

Hedgehog awareness week May 2020 - organised by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) to highlight the problems hedgehogs face and how you can help them. This year the charity asked people to try to make the whole street hedgehog friendly by join up habitat by making CD case sized Hedgehog Highways in the bottom of fences and walls.
For more information see
https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/hedgehog-awareness-week-2020-3rd-may-9th-may/

Transport Decarbonisation Plan – the steps which will be taken to develop the document
For more information see
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/creating-the-transport-decarbonisation-plan

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Investigation & Discovery Day - our Climate Ambassador blog

9/6/2020

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Bucks Climate Ambassadors were invited to attend this event by the Science and Society Sub Committee. We were given space for an information table at the side of the main stage so Cath Campbell and I set out leaflets and information sheets on our bright green table cloth (which used to be a curtain) and decorated the front with crochet green hearts bunting. We were delighted to meet members from all around the county and during the breaks we had very interesting conversations about the topics raised by the speakers and about the information we had brought with us. We were so pleased to hear that many members had engaged in Show the Love activity on 14 February.

The Science and Society committee had chosen four really interesting speakers from the science and environmental fields of energy innovation, climate change, geology and materials science.

I was very interested to hear Professor Melanie Loveridge talk about how her work on lithium ion technology was contributing to the UK commitment of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The effective function of these kind of batteries will be key to the function of electric vehicles in the future.

Jane Tubb told the story of a pioneering geologist Gertrude Elles who made a major contribution to the understanding of geological time and also encouraged women to study natural sciences at a time when their education was very limited.

Dr Ceris Jones explained the whole host of changes that farmers have seen as a result of changes in the UK climate. They have noticed an increase in extreme weather events and that generally winters are getting warmer. She outlined the many things that farmers and agriculture can deliver as part of the solution. What would help farmers and growers to achieve the NFU target of net zero by 2040 will be positive government policy, clear standards for animal welfare, food safely, imports and laws and most especially that everyone is working together towards the same clear goals.

Dr Anna Poszajski’s presentation was very funny, intriguing and interactive as she told us about the science of her cross channel swim. In case you might be considering such a swim apparently the best snack to eat is a chocolate mini roll, you need to select an appropriate swimming costume and there are 4 species of jellyfish which you really don’t want to encounter as they sting.

The new venue in Aylesbury was easy to find and local parking had been arranged with stewards on hand to help; the venue organisers were most welcoming and the facilities were good, including free tea and coffee but already there was hand sanitiser available for everyone. We were lucky that this meeting could still go ahead as only days later came the national lock-down and the cancellation of so many other events.

Yvonne Alton
March 2020

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The Members' Blog

Fabric re-use and recyling for our environment

Bucks Climate Ambassadors have a cup of coffee online!

Investigation & Discovery Day - our Climate Ambassador blog

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