Did you have a parent or grandparent who lived during the Great Depression (1929-1939)? Did they save everything? My mother was born in 1935 during the middle of those years. She and my maternal grandmother did save everything and were very resourceful at trying to pinch every penny they could for many years into the future. If clothing was beyond repair and at the end of the hand-me-down line, it was ripped into strips for rugmaking or quilts. If dishes and pans were cracked or too well-seasoned for cooking, they were turned into decor or flower pots.
In the Depression era, the idea of “planned obsolescence” was created to boost the economy by shortening the lifespan of household items like light bulbs, forcing new purchases as replacements. Boosting the economy sounds like a great idea, but what happens with all of the old stuff? Besides sending items to our local landfills, shiploads of our waste are sent to other countries. For example, with our modern technology tools, an abundance of electronic waste is sent to regions such as Southeast Asia or African countries like Ghana and Nigeria.
Fabric waste is another rising concern. Fast fashion is clothing that changes quickly with the latest styles and does not last long. Clothing manufacturers ship piles of unused and unsold textiles to Chile, with a free port that does not charge for dumping there, and fast fashion pollution is a rising environmental problem. Fast fashion that is not resellable is often burned or left to decompose slowly, releasing harmful chemicals into our environment.
Basic scientific laws describe how matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred into other forms. In 1971, Barry Commoner, a prominent environmental scientist and writer, coined the Commoner’s Laws of Ecology, including:
- Everything is connected to everything else.
- Everything must go somewhere.
- Nature knows best.
- There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Even if something is no longer in your house or on your property, it’s still part of the biosphere that we share with all living things, our Earthly “backyard”. Creating fabrics for fast fashion uses many resources and produces several waste products that affect our air, water, and soil. Synthetic fabrics that are petroleum-based use 125-175 megajoules of energy, while natural fibers like cotton use 60 megajoules. Ninety-three billion cubic meters (3.2 trillion cubic feet) of water are consumed to create textiles. The dyes or other chemicals to color the fabrics add to the 20% of global wastewater not suitable for human consumption. Over a billion tons of carbon dioxide are added to our atmosphere through clothing production. With only a small percentage of clothing being reused or recycled, our purchases do affect our ecosystems.
So what can we do about these issues? Younger generations like Gen Z and millennials are embracing “Grandmacore” practices, returning to skills like yarncrafting (knitting and crocheting), gardening, canning, and thrifting. Individuals can reduce textile waste by reusing and repurposing items that might otherwise be thrown in the trash. Two billion t-shirts are sold globally each year and you can learn to cut your excess closet clutter into yarn for crocheting, knitting, or weaving projects like our mothers and grandmothers used to do. Let’s take a hint from the younger generations and jump on board with the legacy crafting and dollar-stretching grandma hobbies of our elders
References Commoner, B. (1972). The closing circle: Nature, man and technology. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
David Suzuki Foundation. (2026). The environmental cost of fast fashion. https://davidsuzuki.org/living-green/the-environmental-cost-of-fast-fashion/
Olivar Aponte, N., Hernández Gómez, J., Torres Argüelles, V., & Smith, E. D. (2024). Fast fashion consumption and its environmental impact: A literature review. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 20(1), 2381871. https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2024.2381871 United Nations. (2019, March 25). UN launches drive to highlight environmental cost of staying fashionable. UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/03/1035161
Judi Roux, Ed.D., is a former biology and teacher education instructor and the current founder of tROUXly treasures. She teaches classes to repurpose t-shirts into yarn with Lake Superior School District Community Education, the Spirit of the Lake Community Arts Center, and the Duluth Folk School. Upcoming class dates can be viewed on https://judiroux.wixsite.com/trouxlytreasures
