Pay attention to the material of your clothes
There are substances that last almost an eternity, and this although they are not made of plastics. A good fabric made of natural materials is worth its weight in gold.
And some materials, for example, become better the longer they are worn. Leather jackets, shoes and belts, for example, last super long if they are well cared for and become more supple after each time they are worn. Straight jackets and belts can be bought well second-hand.
A worn jeans looks clearly better than a stonewashed jeans trimmed to a used look. And the environmental balance of a worn product is much better than if you buy a new garment.
Doing without synthetic fibres
It's really difficult. The fashion industry has recently discovered recycled fabrics. Again and again there are collections made from sea plastic or plastic bottles. Very laudable actually. If this "actually" were not.
Fact is, up to now it is still very rare to get long-fibre synthetic fibres from such recycled products. So you still have to add a proportion of fresh plastic to make the fibres durable. Moreover, especially with marine plastic, which likes to absorb harmful substances from the sea, we wonder whether this can also be found in clothing? So far there are no studies on this.
The bigger problem is and remains the plastic itself. As soon as we wash our clothes, the finest synthetic fibre particles come off and enter our bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes and seas, unfiltered via the grey water. It is therefore introduced into nature. Even when we wear the clothes, fibres are released. And what happens when we no longer want to wear the garment? It goes into the garbage or is recycled and releases plastic back into nature. So if you want to live sustainably, don't wear clothes made of synthetic fibres at all.
Don't buy blended fabrics
A T-shirt made of organic cotton and recycled PET, which used to be plastic bottles, is unfortunately not sustainable either, although the CO2 and water balance is good. Why? It is a blended fabric, which unfortunately cannot be recycled. It is not possible to make a new garment from blended fabrics at the moment. It is more likely to be used to make blankets for the transport of furniture, products for insulation etc. This is called downcycling.
Fabric mixtures of viscose and natural materials cannot be recycled well at the moment either. However, natural materials that have been produced sustainably can be returned to nature more easily. So if possible, make sure you buy your clothes without blended fabrics, and if possible, avoid using synthetic fibres such as viscose or polyester etc.
