The (Almost) Zero-Waste Guide

by Melanie Mannarino

  But building an (almost) zero-waste wardrobe is doable. As with any zero-waste efforts, it’s a matter of gradually reducing your impact when it comes to clothing, accessories, and shoes, and exploring all available options to keep your discarded items out of the landfill. Of the many ideas here, you should find at least a few that fit your style.

  Create a capsule wardrobe.

  This tactic has a double benefit: fewer choices mean less decision fatigue—and more time in your day, since you won’t find yourself standing blank-faced in front of an open closet, trying to figure out what to wear. A capsule wardrobe is one filled with just a few key pieces of good quality, in classic styling and neutral colors (or bold—just make sure they all coordinate). You should be able to combine these pieces in different configurations to create multiple looks across seasons and years. With a capsule wardrobe as your foundation, you can update your look from season to season with accessories (a vintage scarf, say) without completely discarding your clothing for newer, trendier pieces every few months. Capsule wardrobes are individual, depending on your preferences (skirts and dresses?), your lifestyle (traditional suits?), and where you live, but this list is a good starting point:

  Black pants

  Jeans

  Shorts

  Blazer

  White T-shirt

  Black T-shirt

  White button-down

  Trench coat

  Denim jacket

  Sweater

  Leggings

  Skirt

  Dress

  Buy secondhand whenever you can.

  From rummage sales to designer consignment sites, there are more opportunities than ever before to score pre-owned clothing, shoes, and accessories at every price point and style. Whether you’re looking for one-of-a-kind vintage finds or high-end fashion pieces you might not otherwise be able to afford, extending the life of secondhand items not only keeps them out of the landfill but also reduces the overall demand for new items. And as more of us start turning away from the brand-new, cheaply made trendy items known as fast fashion, it will send a powerful message to the clothing and textile industry that consumers are hungry for more sustainable options.

  Check the ingredients in your vegan leather.

  Yes, some innovative new vegan leather is made from pineapple skins, cork, coated canvas, or even mushroom caps.4 But the majority of vegan leather items are made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polyurethane—in other words, plastic. (Years before it was called vegan leather, it was called “pleather”: plastic leather.) If you’re shopping for a leather-look jacket, shoes, or handbag, check the label to see exactly what it’s made from. Even better, shop secondhand stores and websites for vegan leather, and give an older piece an extended life far away from the landfill.

  Donate only what’s still wearable.

  It’s so tempting to take every last article of clothing you no longer want and send it off to your favorite charity. But some items shouldn’t be donated at all. There’s an easy way to decide whether that shirt or those shoes are worthy of the donation bin. Ask yourself, Is it holey? Stained? Worn down? Irreparably smelly? If you couldn’t imagine someone else wearing the item in public with their head held high, find another way to dispose of it. Clothing and other donations should always be in good condition—too big or small for you, maybe, or no longer your style, but still wearable.

  Make sure your clothing goes where it’s needed.

  At this point, there’s a global surplus of donated secondhand clothing, partly because of the fast fashion trend, in which consumers cycle through wardrobes at a faster rate than ever before, discarding last season’s items in favor of newer pieces. What’s more, in the past few years, a number of East African countries have launched efforts to ban imported secondhand clothing and shoes.5 In an effort to help boost their economies and create job opportunities, these countries want to develop their own clothing industries instead of living off other countries’ discards.

  With fewer communities of people truly in need of used clothing, the most responsible thing you can do is make sure you’re donating items that will find a second life with someone else instead of ending up in storage and then being burned or dumped in a landfill. Contact your local churches or synagogues, community outreach centers, and homeless or women’s shelters to see what their donation needs are, or donate to national organizations that either give items directly to those in need—like Dress for Success and Donate My Dress—or sell the items at secondhand stores and use the proceeds to assist others, like the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and Vietnam Veterans of America.

  Learn to sew—or find a good tailor.

  Knowing how to hem a too-long dress or take in too-big pants is useful when you’re shopping secondhand, and also when you want to keep wearing favorite clothes in your existing wardrobe. Sewing a button, darning a hole, taking in a waist, letting a hemline up or down… these are all simple sewing tasks that you can easily master by hand with just a needle and thread, or—even faster and easier—with a basic sewing machine. Of course, if you’re not the DIY type, you can spend a little money for basic alterations at a reputable tailor and walk out with a custom-fitted wardrobe.

  Host a clothing swap.

  You’ve heard the rule, right—if you haven’t used any item in the past three months, you probably don’t need it in your life? Apply that basic principle to your wardrobe at the start of every season, but adapt it according to the time of year. Did you wear that sweater at all last winter? If not, you likely won’t wear it this winter, either. Cull what no longer suits you, and then set a date and invite friends to a clothing-swap party. Everybody walks away with something new to them, along with the satisfaction of knowing they’ve saved clothes, shoes, and accessories from the landfill. Here’s how to organize a clothing swap:

  Set guidelines. The idea is that the clothes, shoes, and accessories everyone brings should still be in good condition and stylish.

  Keep the guest list modest. Depending on where you’re hosting the gathering—a tiny studio apartment or a more spacious home—you want enough of a group that there will be variety, but not so many that you don’t have room to display the items. Think seven to fifteen people.

  Designate stations. Clothes on one side of the room, shoes on the other, accessories in the hallway. Spread things out a bit so people have space to browse.

  Please everyone. Or at least try, by making sure there are at least two people of roughly the same clothing or shoe size at the gathering. (Otherwise, who will your six-foot friend swap with?)

  Create an exchange system. Make it easy: for every piece someone brings, they get to choose a piece to take home.

  Provide changing areas and lots of mirrors. A swap party works best when people are shopping and trying on and deciding simultaneously; things slow down if it’s one at a time.

  Offer light snacks and drinks. It’s a party, after all. Just keep things simple—and skip the red wine. It stains.

  Donate unwanted items to charity. At the end of the party, offer to gather up whatever’s left and donate it to a worthy cause.

  Buy from sustainable brands.

  When you do purchase new items, make sure your money is going where your heart is by shopping sustainable brands. These days, companies aren’t shy about sharing their latest environmental and sustainability initiatives. If you’re interested in a brand, check their website to see what they’re doing to reduce their impact on the planet. Here are just a few examples of some of the good work being done by responsible brands:

  Reformation uses their “RefScale” to track the environmental footprint of each item they sell, calculating the pounds of carbon dioxide emitted, gallons of water used, and pounds of waste generated in making their clothing and shoes versus traditionally made garments.

  UK-based People Tree is Fair Trade Certified, meaning they not only make sure the workers involved in every step of their garment production are treated fairly but they also use or
ganic cotton (thus reducing the amount of toxic pesticides in the environment) and natural and low-impact dyes in their fabrics.

  Patagonia is Fair Trade Certified as well, and is committed to using sustainable materials whenever possible. Additionally, they encourage consumers to repair items rather than replace them, with the “Repair & Care” guides on their site—for everything from how to fix an unthreaded drawstring to how to repair a baffle on a down jacket.

  Allbirds crafts their shoes from a sustainably sourced combination of merino wool and eucalyptus tree fibers, uses recycled plastic bottles in their laces, and ships their products in 90 percent recycled cardboard packaging.

  Take good care of your shoes.

  The better you treat your footwear, the longer each pair of shoes will last, whether they’re a cheap pair you bought on a whim or a pricey splurge you hope to be buried in.

  Conventional wisdom says that running shoes should be replaced every three hundred to five hundred miles, but caring for them properly will help put you closer to the five-hundred-mile mark. Hand-washing sneakers keeps the fabric clean and fresh and protects soles from the battering they’d get even on the gentle cycle in the washing machine. And, yes, let them air-dry.

  Store all shoes in a cubby, box, or shoe bag to keep them from getting dusty.

  Use shoe trees to help them keep their shape, especially when packed away for the season. For tall boots, you can roll up old magazines and stick them in the shafts to help them stay upright.

  Polish or buff leather shoes at least once a season, and periodically brush suede shoes to remove surface dirt and preserve the nap.

  Try not to wear the same shoes two days in a row; alternating footwear not only gives your feet a break (preventing blisters, for example) but also gives your shoes a break from outdoor elements, wear and tear, and your sweat.

  If your shoes get wet, stuff them with newspaper to soak up the moisture. (No newspaper on hand to repurpose? Use a towel instead.)

  Check the soles regularly. If you know you’ll be walking quite a bit in leather or synthetic-soled shoes, have a cobbler put taps on the toe and heel to keep them newer for longer. If you’re staring at soles that are already worn down (keep a vigilant eye on the heels, especially), bring them to the cobbler ASAP—they may need to be entirely replaced to save the shoes.

  Donate shoes to be redistributed or recycled.

  Aside from donating shoes to your favorite local charity, you can also send them to companies and organizations that recycle and redistribute shoes to others in need. Here are a few national programs:

  Ship your shoes to Soles4Souls. They accept new and gently worn athletic shoes, running shoes, dress shoes, sandals, pumps, heels, work boots, cleats, dance shoes, and flip-flops—and they’ll either give them directly to disaster victims in need of shoes or to microenterprises in Haiti, Central America, and parts of Africa to recondition and sell locally.

  Drop off your old, worn-out gym shoes (of any brand) at a participating Nike store, and they’ll recycle the materials through their Reuse-a-Shoe program. The resulting material, called Nike Grind, is used to create new footwear, apparel, and field, track, and court surfaces.

  Got prom-worthy pumps, sandals, or flats? Drop them off at a local chapter of Becca’s Closet, a nonprofit that provides teen girls with formal dresses, shoes, and accessories to wear to their proms.

  Buy gender-neutral kids’ clothing.

  Got a little one—or more? Then you know how quickly they grow, sizing out of shoes and clothing so fast that the items are practically still new by the time they’ve outgrown them. Choosing gender-neutral clothing ensures that you’ll be able to use the items with your next child or pass them along to friends or family members, no matter what gender their offspring might be. Yes, boys can wear pink and girls can wear truck T-shirts, but the more universal the colors, styles, and designs of their clothes, the easier it will be to hand them off to a new kid again, and again, and again.

  Wash your jeans less often.

  There’s a lot of talk about how environmentally unfriendly denim is—from the cotton used to make it (which requires large amounts of water, land, and other natural resources, and relies heavily on chemicals for growth and disease prevention) to the sometimes synthetic indigo dyes (whose runoff from factories pollutes area rivers6) and harsh chemicals used to produce custom rinses and finishes. But in terms of carbon dioxide emissions over the lifetime of a pair of jeans, 18.6 kg comes from washing them; that’s more than the total CO2 emissions created from growing the cotton; cutting, sewing, and finishing the denim; and transporting it to the retail outlet, according to Blue Jeans: Environmental Aspects and Opportunities to Reduce the Environmental Impact, a report commissioned by the International Solid Waste Association. While you don’t have to follow as extreme a denim-care regimen as Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh, who went on record saying he doesn’t wash his denim in the washing machine, period, you could take a cue from the brand’s official stance, which is that denim should be washed about once a month (unless you happen to get a stain on your pair, of course).7 That advice is meant to prolong the life and look of your denim—and the environmental savings are an added benefit.

  Quit the dry cleaner.

  You drop off your clothes in one big jumble in your reusable laundry sack, and they come back on metal hangers, individually packaged—sometimes with paper liners—in plastic bags. Some cleaners will let you bring back your hangers and even provide your own garment bag, which can help bring a trip to the dry cleaner’s down toward zero waste—but don’t forget about the chemical solvents used to clean the clothes. Traditionally, cleaners use perchloroethylene (“perc”), a chemical that’s considered by the state of California to be known to cause cancer (bladder, esophageal, stomach, intestinal, and pancreatic) and reproductive toxicity. It also impacts the environment: according to a fact sheet put out by SF Environment, a department of the city and county of San Francisco,8 perc has been shown to contaminate soil, water, and indoor and outdoor air. While some dry cleaners have switched to ostensibly less damaging solvents (GreenEarth®, which contains decamethylcyclopentasiloxane, or D5; or hydrocarbons such as DF-2000, EcoSolv, Shell Sol, and Pure Dry), no solution is completely without environmental impact. The fact sheet reports that D5 has been found in human and fish tissue, and petroleum-based hydrocarbon solvents emit smog and contribute to global warming.

  As an alternative, you can hand-wash wool, silk, cotton, linen, and most polyester fabrics at home. Just don’t confuse hand-washing with “machine washing on delicate cycle.” If you’ve ever put a beloved wool sweater in the machine only to have it come out shrunk to doll size, you won’t be making that mistake twice. Instead, fill a basin (sink, tub, or large bucket) with cool water and a bit of gentle wool-wash detergent or even baby shampoo. Then gently soak and swirl your items one at a time. Give each one a rinse, and then blot water from them using a towel and shape and lay flat to dry on another towel or drying rack—or both.

  Hang a clothesline.

  The typical clothes dryer can consume as much energy as a new refrigerator, dishwasher, and clothes washer combined,9 according to the NRDC. While newer, more energy-efficient models might use less energy, the majority of homes in the United States have machines that are older than five years10—and 30 percent are older than ten years. The NRDC estimates that if we all switched to the most energy-efficient models available, it would prevent approximately sixteen million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually,11 which is equal to the pollution from three coal-fired power plants. But for an (almost) zero-waste approach, don’t send your inefficient dryer to the outdated electronics graveyard—instead, hang a clothesline. Whether you hang it in your bathroom, laundry room, or your yard, it’s an inexpensive and zero-waste way to dry your clothing. Additionally, it might just extend the life of your garments. In a study conducted by the American Chemical Society,12 researchers found that high-temperature drying reduced the strength of cotton fab
ric by 25 percent or more. Spandex and other elastic fibers are also susceptible to heat damage. Drying your clothes on a line, rack, or hanger can preserve their shape; prevent them from rubbing against other clothes in the dryer, which can make the fabric look worn; and reduce your carbon footprint. Plus, if you air-dry clothes indoors during the winter months, you’re naturally humidifying the dry air, at no cost to you or the planet.

  Swaddle your baby in cloth diapers, not disposable.

  Even the littlest members of the household can live (almost) zero-waste, starting with their diapers. While researchers have found that making disposable diapers and washing reusable ones takes roughly the same amount of energy,13 cloth diapers have the advantage when it comes to landfill disposal. According to recent estimates, 4.3 million tons of diapers ended up in landfills in the United States over the course of one year (and no, that doesn’t include the human waste that’s thrown out with them).14 Organic cloth diapers can be made from cotton, hemp, or bamboo, and while none of these fibers is impact-free when it comes to the environment, they’re closer to zero-waste than traditional disposable diapers, which typically contain wood pulp; a super absorbent polymer (SAP) of either petroleum-derived sodium polyacrylate or polyacrylate absorbents; polyethylene and polyester sheets; elastic; and polypropylene tape.15

  SIX Live (Almost) Zero Waste in Your Community

  When it comes to living (almost) zero waste in an effort to preserve our planet’s resources and keep it from becoming one giant landfill, two things are true at the same time: we can each do our part as individuals to make a difference, and we should all work together to make a difference.