Repairing clothes with sustainable sewing projects and mending with embroidery keeps them out of landfills can help address fashion waste, one of the biggest problems of the fast fashion industry.

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The fast fashion industry is one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions, pollution, and waste. Fast fashion encourages an extraordinary rate of buying and tossing clothing. Taking care of clothes can keep some of those garments out of landfills. As more people begin to question the impacts of clothing waste on the environment, old values are becoming new habits, and repairing clothes by mending, sewing, or tailoring is growing in popularity as part of the slow fashion movement. Repairing clothes to make them last longer is an affordable way to participate in challenging the excessive production of fast fashion. 

Repairing Clothes

Mending is the act of repairing textiles when they wear out or become damaged. However, with mass-produced clothing becoming cheaper and more available in recent years in conjunction with the rise of the fast fashion industry, mending has become a rather tedious and unnecessary practice. Many other modern products followed the same path. Repairs are seen as more trouble than they’re worth. 

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Mending, however, can help slowing down modern clothes-buying habits. It encourages valuing the clothes one owns instead of buying new items every time they wear out. Buying less is a great way to become a more sustainable consumer and is one of the main practices of slow fashion.

Repairing clothing used to be a habit most people had out of necessity. Before fast fashion became a ‘thing’, clothes were more expensive and sturdier and thus more valuable to the average consumer. If you could fix your clothes and give them a second, third, or fourth life, you were making your money last longer, too. 

It was common for both men and women to repair clothing, though by the mid-20th century, it had largely become a domestic task that fell to women. Repair work can be tedious, and it wasn’t considered something that could beautify clothes. During the gender equality movements of the 1960s, domestic tasks like mending became symbols of inequity. Giving up mending in favor of buying new clothes became easier as cheap clothes were more available and marketing was more aggressive. 

Mending – and many other forms of repair –became a lost skill. Recently, though, repairs have been gaining popularity alongside other craftsman tasks like knitting. As people engage more with slow fashion in an effort to keep clothes in closets instead of landfills, mending has seen a resurgence. 

The Environmental Benefits of Repairing Clothes 

Repairing clothes for style is all well and good, but does mending actually help the environment? The short answer is yes. 

Mending clothes and continuing to wear them keeps them out of landfills, which right now are overflowing with discarded garments. Each year, a staggering 92 million tonnes of clothing waste ends up in landfills. One driver of this waste is the fact that the number of times people wear their clothing has declined by 35% in the last 15 years. People are just wearing garments less before throwing them out. By using patching a pair of jeans or remaking a jacket, you are actually joining a movement that questions reckless consumption. 

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Sustainable sewing projects like mending are also a way to develop mindful habits, something many people discovered during COVID-19 lockdowns. As a part of the slow fashion movement, repairing clothes can help you become more aware of your spending and consumption. 

Some brands like Patagonia and Chaco are even beginning to offer repairs, fixing customers’ branded items for a fee. Other stores, like Toast in London, offer mending classes and workshops. Even if you hire someone else to make the mend, you’ll know your clothes better. And if you decide to try your hand at a DIY, you’ll learn a new skill and create something more meaningful. Over time, old clothes become long-time friends; there is contentment and satisfaction in knowing those items.

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How to Repair Clothes With Embroidery

Particularly popular is the growing practice of visible mending, which has roots in traditions like Japanese sashiko and Indian kantha. Like kintsugi – the Japanese art of repairing pottery with metallic lacquer – the repair itself becomes part of the beauty of the object. Instead of hiding the repair, visible mending shines a spotlight on it, valuing the history of the object. 

Photo by Merve Sehirli Nasir on Unsplash

Visible mending takes old, worn clothes and transforms them. Mending with embroidery or bright-coloured thread makes the piece of clothing feel new and unique. This sort of mending also tells a story about the clothes, pointing to their past, present, and future lives. It can be a way to better understand a world with a little less consumption and a little more sustainability. 

As a modern fashion movement, visible mending also celebrates individual style and taste. Repairing clothes makes them unique to you, and it may inspire people to ask about the stories in your denim jacket. But visible mending has a history spanning back hundreds of years. Its resurgence now as a sustainable habit can build on the cultural and artistic decades of the past. Because stories are so visible with this kind of mending, it’s easy to see how it is becoming a climate movement, too. 

Final Thoughts

For some members of older generations, thinking of mending as a climate-positive habit could feel strange. These were habits and practices deemed too mundane to continue, after all. But recent studies show that the desire to be more sustainable is present across generations. 

Our leisure habits are indicating an interest in repair work, too. In the UK., the show Repair Shop regularly garners more than 7 million viewers per episode, and #visiblemending has more than 20 million views on TikTok (#clothingrepair has another 19 million). 

Fast fashion and the marketing machine that drives it tells us that clothes are disposable. But historical practices claim otherwise, presenting a proven record of the ways fashion and mending don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Fixing the hole in your favorite sweater may seem mundane, but in reality, it’s an act of joy and pro-environmentalism. Embracing imperfections in our clothes may help us change our way of thinking, helping us look for solutions to other problems with the same creative drive. 

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The post How Repairing Clothes Slows Down Climate Change appeared first on Earth.Org.

Microforests, tiny and dense patches of forest, create biodiversity hotspots that help fight climate change, cool down cities, and absorb carbon.

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Creating accessible ways to store carbon and increase biodiversity can help slow down climate change. Microforests, tiny and dense patches of forest, are becoming increasingly popular, particularly in urban areas where space is usually tight, since they can fit pretty much anywhere. While some reforestation or tree-planting projects are criticised for their lack of variety, microforests are built with forest layers. This makes them true forests where many plants, insects, and fungi can thrive. 

Microforests are small, dense patches of forest plants native to the location of the forest. These tiny forests are increasingly being used as a climate change solution. Photo by Witney Tree Keepers.

Rapid deforestation means the Earth is losing some of its main sources of carbon storage and biodiversity. Less carbon stored in trees means more carbon in the air, and more carbon in the air means a warmer planet. 

Both tiny forests and vast regions like the Amazon are vital to ecosystems. They contain high levels of biodiversity and absorb large amounts of carbon. Microforests are a growing trend that makes it easy to grow mature trees quickly and fight climate change even in tiny spaces. These tiny forests could also make cities cooler in a warmer climate. 

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What Are Microforests?

A microforest is a dense, tiny forest with high biodiversity. The technique is a form of afforestation, or the act of planting a forest where there wasn’t one before. This is different than reforestation, which restores an existing forest. The challenge of both forms of planting is the method. When a single tree specie is planted over hectares of land, it creates a biological desert. These sites become mono-crop fields with few insects, animals, or other plants.

Forests need multiple layers of plant and animal life to thrive. These layers create a web of biodiversity between fungi, animals, trees, and everything in between. Each layer helps the others become healthier. Traditional forests are home to an estimated 80% of all Earth’s land-based species. Tiny forests aim to replicate that level of biodiversity on a small scale. 

Microforests are planted densely and become hotspots for insects and small animals. In urban areas, patches of forest improve health, cool cities more effectively than ornamental vegetation, and remove pollutants. Urban forests have other benefits as well, including creating a buffer against disasters like tsunamis or hurricanes. 

Miyawaki Tiny Forests

The technique for creating microforests was pioneered by Akiro Miyawaki, a Japanese botanist and ecologist who was inspired by Japan’s sacred forests to develop his own method of forest building. Up until his death in 2021, Miyawaki was still planting forests. Over his lifetime, he planted thousands of tiny forests of more than 40 million trees. 

Miyawaki forests are the most common type of microforest. After the soil at the site is made healthy, layers of forest plants native to the location are planted at a density 20 to 30 times higher than a typical forest. Microforests are monitored for the first several years of growth to make sure they are healthy. As they compete for space, they grow an estimated 10 times faster than normal forests. Eventually, the microforests are left on their own to thrive and host insects, animals, and carbon storage. 

Why is Biodiversity Important

Biodiversity comprises the variety and number of living organisms, from tiny microbes to ancient redwoods and it is immensely helpful in fighting climate change. Unfortunately, animal and plant species are declining at an alarming rate as habitats are destroyed or altered. This is being called the sixth mass extinction, with species going extinct at the fastest rate ever recorded.

Plants cannot grow without pollination, including most of the plants humans rely on for food. Changing the web of life has impacts on human health, too. Energy production, clean water, disease containment, and more all depend on rich biodiversity. 

Like the human body, the planet needs everything to work together in order to thrive. A diverse ecosystem absorbs carbon better because it functions better. Thriving ecosystems also create barriers against the impacts of climate change. Strong mangrove forests prevent deadly storm surges, and flourishing forests prevent erosion and devastating megafires.

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Can Microforests Help Fight Climate Change?

Microforests are not going to replace the millions of hectares of native forests being lost every day, and they shouldn’t be seen as a solution to reforestation. Rather, they can replace areas that had little plant life or biodiversity in the first place. They also absorb significant amounts of carbon. 

Using the Miyawaki method, microforests mature in a few decades rather than a century, meaning the mature trees can absorb high levels of carbon much sooner. More mature forests are also better at being barriers and hosting more plant and animal life.

Microforests are growing in popularity in cities all over the world, where space is tight and green spaces are slim. Some cities are even encouraging a DIY method and organisations are making microforests their mission. Because these forests are so small, building them is more easily done. However, preparing urban soil for rich plant life can result in high initial costs.

The more of these tiny forests there are, the more of a chance they have in fighting a warming climate. Each new forest will contribute to new hotspots of biodiversity, new areas of cooling, and, perhaps most importantly, new spots for carbon storage. 

Growing Your Own Forest

So, what’s next for microforest? 

These tiny forests could become a regular sight in most cities. Microforest organisations are already taking the lead. People are also growing tiny forests in their backyards. 

Microforests aren’t going to replace the hectares of forest being lost. Dense patches of forest could help make cities more resilient to climate change, though. And the more microforests there are, the more space there is for carbon absorption and biodiversity. 

Featured image by Afforestt

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The post The Power of Microforests In Slowing Down Climate Change appeared first on Earth.Org.