It’s Second-hand September this month. Oxfam and other second-hand shops are encouraging us to buy more of our clothes and other items second hand. The fashion industry uses a massive amount of water creating clothes and is one of the most polluting industries. ‘Buying one second hand t-shirt and a pair of jeans could save 20,000 bottles of water’. This short video shows the effects of fast fashion on the environment and highlights poor working conditions of people within this industry https://youtu.be/0v7f0KeNpv8 (UN – Wasted: Fast fashion is fuelling our ecological crisis video)
There is guide to Slow, Sustainable and Ethical fashion on the Oxfam website https://www.oxfam.org.uk/get-involved/second-hand-september/ and there are some great bargains to be found in shops and online. While you’re at it you could have a clear out and donate some items to make some more room in your wardrobe for your new finds!
Alternatively, learn to repair that pair of jeans that just needs a patch or cover up the stain on a shirt. There are sewing classes popping up in and around Edinburgh to help you do just that, we’ve found a few online.
Edinburgh
https://www.artisanstitch.co.uk/
Fife
https://transitionsta.org/events/
East Lothian
https://www.madeineastlothian.org/
West Lothian
If you know of any others let us know and we’ll put them up on the Notice board and if you do go along to any of these workshops, let us know what you’ve remade.
And if sewing isn’t your thing why not try upcycling some furniture, keep an eye on Eventbrite for upcycling workshops and email us some photos of your handywork to ecrf.sustainability@ed.ac.uk
Hi Lorna, in Midlothian, several of the libraries now have sewing machines and equipment for repairing clothes and are starting to do sessions to help people learn skills required to re-use their clothes. I don’t know if there’s something similar in Edinburgh.
As for me I spend a LOT of time putting patches on my kids trousers, so I am now an expert. One pair of school trousers came home with a hole in it the first day it had been worn! Yet I never see other kids with patches so they must just get new one each time a hole appears!!
Thanks Tammy, I hadn’t heard that libraries now have sewing machines, that’s a great idea! I’ll find out if the same is happening in Edinburgh and post some further details.