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Your periodical reminder that all clothing is hand made by humans, usually underpaid!
Polyester doesn't breathe and sheds microplastics when manufactured, worn and washed!
Cotton farming takes immense amounts of water and pesticides!
Viscose can be made from recycled fibres & waste cellulose, but it's a fairly toxic process!
Linen is more ecological to grow but expensive!

"But what do I wear then, Sini?"
The garments you already own, until they fall apart or someone else needs them!
#Sustainability #FastFashion #WorkersRights

More granular data:
There are some garment making processes that can be automated most or all the way through, like knitwear and socks, but most will still be finished, assembled and/or packed by hand. Crochet is always human work.
Wool is pretty good to wear and when certified and from a good source, can be pretty sustainable if you wear it until it stops existing. This can take decades. Yarn can be recycled, mending is great!
There are fabric recycling initiatives, but the best option is to not buy it if you don't need it. Secondhand is more expensive than it used to be, but you can find older, better quality garments than the crap of today!

I do also have a bunch of laundry tips and opinions in me, but unsure if there's an audience for that. 😂

Laundry tips and opinions which were requested:

Using fabric softener will make cotton feel clammy and greasy, and give it a mildewy smell. Fabric conditioning helps with staticky plastic fibres but isn't necessary for natural fibres! Just wash without. Never put it on towels, it stops their absorption powers. You can use a little bit of vinegar instead of fabric softener, it will have a mild smell when wet, dries odourless.

Line drying is less wear on clothes than dryer but live your life if you have no place to dry them!

Bedding needs to be washed super hot occasionally! Towels, too!

If your shirts smell terrible because you've been sweating into them, soak them in the sink with a cup of vinegar in room temperature water, rinse, wash normally. This kills a lot of mildew and helps break apart organic residue.

Liquid laundry detergent is silly! Just get detergent in powder form, you're spared the plastic bottles and no heavy liquids are ferried around.
Soap nuts are great if you're allergic to everything but soap nuts. They're not even nuts and are compostable!

A lot of the washing instructions are LIES. You can literally boil 100% cotton and it's fine! You'd be amazed how much dry clean only is not! Polyester and cotton will be just dandy in 60 Celsius - the manufacturers play it safe because some dyes fade in hotter temps. Cheaply made clothes may shrink, but if it's stinky, take the risk!

@sinituulia Re: stink, it's also worth periodically cleaning your washing machine - you can get cleaners that run through most of the mechanism, though discouraging mould and mildew on seals is a constant battle and why I hate front loaders. (Most mould killers - including stuff like white vinegar - will ruin the rubber of the seals, so it's hard to completely kill. You can use cloths or paper towel to soak up any excess water after you've used the machine so it dries faster, but then you have to remember to remove them...)

I used to clean mine every 6 months, or after washing anything particularly badly soiled or stinky.

@dartigen If you wash bedsheets and towels at 70 Celsius or more, not all the time but every now and then, that tends to cook all the mould and mildew that is currently on there. There's a bunch of minerals and residue that will accumulate as well, depending on the hardness of the water and detergents used, so I've seen it recommended to wash the washing machine itself on an empty cycle with one of those citric acid tablets. It's not super great on the gaskets, seals and the unprotected axels of the drum, but every now and then should be fine. I've seen once a year recommended, but honestly can't remember the last time did, because I wash white towels with an oxidising powder detergent that tends to melt away everything accumulating on my machine. 😂

sahqon

@sinituulia @dartigen We wash the kitchen towels on 60C about every month or so (when we get a machine full) with dishwashing tablets, that cleans the machine out too (and disappears any stains on the towels completely, including years old ones). And replacing fabric softener with vinegar will cut back on the mold anyway.

@sahqon Can't say for sure but I do have this idea that dishwashing tablets are also mostly citric acid, surfactants (sometimes just literal soap) and preservatives... At least the more hippie types. I don't have a dishwasher so I don't know for sure.
Wouldn't have thought to put them in the washing machine, wild!

@sinituulia Ok so it doesn't have an english ingredients list which is a first. It says 5-15% oxygen based cleaning things (translated word for word so I'm not making that shit up), then >5% phosphonates and the other 80 or so % is a mystery.

@sahqon 😅 That's not alarmingly vague or anything... I think I read somewhere that in some countries you don't have to declare filler agents if they're calcium, talc or something, but over here you probably have to!

@sinituulia This is Slovakia, which is EU, so -shrug-

@sahqon @sinituulia @dartigen wouldn't the dishwasher tablets make a lot of foam? This is a trick I might try: my two toddlers destroyed quite a few tablecloths and towels...

Similar trick: liquid dishwasher soap for washing greasy bike clothes