How To Be More Sustainable In Your Own Closet
One of Morgania’s core missions is to help create more opportunities to be sustainable
with our wardrobes- whether that be through directly providing clothes made of scraps, education, tips, etc… SO, here are some tips for you on how we can each be more sustainable in our personal wardrobes. Of course, each of us are little compared to the giant corporations making terrible impacts to the planet, but together, we are bigger than they are, and together we can make change. <3
Tip #1: Mend instead of toss
If your clothes get worn out, mend them in creative ways when they’re damaged instead
of throwing them out. Here’s some ideas:
-If something has a stain, paint a design on the garment that covers the stain or utilizes it as part of your art
-Sew a cool antique button over a small hole
-Turn an old holey garment into patches for other garments that have holes; sew the scraps from cutting up the holey garment over a hole on another garment. You could even get funky and sew the scrap pieces all over your garment. And if you don’t know how to sew at all, a beginner hand sewing video on youtube, a needle and thread, and you’ll be sewing away in no time. Hand sewing is seriously simple…and fun!
-Use a cool iron-on patch to cover a rip or stain
Tip #2: Make your old clothes new to you
Or…you could have a clothing swap with friends and give your clothes new life to someone
else while getting to try out some new styles and being sustainable all at the same time. Several wins. And if your friends aren’t up for that, you can pretty much do the same thing online by selling clothes you don’t want on resell sites like Poshmark, Depop, Mercari, etc., and use the money to buy something on the resell site.
Tip #3: Only buy clothes you love
It’s best to buy clothes you can wear with anything…plus those few special, crazy statement pieces you are in love with and can always count on to spice an outfit up and make it YOU…of course…can’t live without those 😉
Tip #4: Washing clothes less
Something else to note about clothes washing is: if you have a lot of polyesters like workout clothes in your closet, microfibers from these fabrics shed into the water supply, putting plastics into our waterways, contaminating water animals, our foods and more! SO, we can actually use attachments for our washing machines to filter out the microplastics from getting into the water supplies. Here are a couple options if you’re interested in looking into this:
-Planet Care filter attachment: Mini Starter Kit – PlanetCare
-Cora Ball (This was inspired by coral. You just throw it in the washing machine with your laundry and clean it out when it’s done): Cora Ball – Dropps
And in true Morgania nature, this can’t go without mentioning- like everything, we should also think
about what happens next to these microplastics you clean out of your filter…maybe don’t just throw them away because you’re just putting them in landfills and what was really the point in doing all that filtering then? It’s a core value of Morgania to be as resourceful as possible and responsible with the materials we have and use. Some people have saved these microplastics and made art; you can totally get creative with your solution…or if you have a Planet Care filter, they will actually collect your used cartridges and recycle the microfibers and refurbish the cartridges…for free
Tip #5: Avoid fast fashion
Avoid fast fashion entirely at all costs if you can. The existence of fast fashion makes the fashion industry the #2 most polluting industry in the world, and we allow it to continue to happen by buying from it. Fast fashion is extremely wasteful and is straight up abusive to the factory workers and the people living in the areas in countries these factories are in. Of course, it goes without saying that unfortunately, the sustainable new clothing options can be expensive, so one great way to have affordable clothing options and avoid fast fashion is to thrift! Goodwill, Salvation Army, any local thrift stores are great options; plus- there’s online thrifting too with Poshmark, Depop, Mercari, etc., and you can always make offers.
Tip #6: Buy from quality brands
When you DO buy new clothes, look for quality items that will last a long time, and buy from brands that are responsible for their processes and materials. Check out facts about brands and decide if they are responsible with what materials they use and where they get them, where their products are produced and if it’s ethical and if they pay their workers fair wages, if they are transparent, what their missions and goals are, etc. For example, when you look at Morgania’s website, you can read that the items are made of deadstock and scraps and about the sustainability mission 😊