SUSTAINABILITY their materials are sourced and urge them to choose the most ethical suppliers they can , even when prototyping .
Fashion designers – and shoppers – need to move away from the throwaway fast fashion mindset , says Dr Igoe . The goal should be to create items that consumers will cherish for a long time , pieces they ’ ll be motivated to mend and maintain rather than wear a few times and then throw away .
THE SIGNS ARE GREEN There are “ green shoots of hope ”, Dr Igoe notes , with some businesses starting to allow customers to return clothes they no longer want to be mended , re-sold or recycled . Some clothing manufacturers are also innovating with biomaterials that are produced in more energy-efficient ways than traditional textiles .
As well as tackling modern fashion ’ s disposability mindset , the PO1 project will work with community groups and organisations , helping to embed and develop practical skills – from deconstruction to design and mending – that support both sustainability and employment .
“ Art and design practice has a way of communicating and having impact that can be quite immediate because it ’ s direct and visual ,” Dr Igoe says . “ Creative , practice-based research has a really important part to play in social engagement and impact .”
Dr Igoe is keen to collaborate with colleagues in other research fields , such as science and business , to explore ways of reducing fashion ’ s environmental impact . One example is considering how the use of polyester and plastic-based fibre contributes to the epidemic of microplastics in the world ’ s oceans . Tiny fibres are shed from clothes when they are washed and are too small to be filtered when wastewater is processed . Many of these microfibres end up being digested by fish and other sea life .
Solving the microplastics problem will be far from easy , but exploring ways to tackle it at the source has become a crucial thread in weaving a new approach to how we make and choose what we wear .
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Putting the brakes on fast fashion , November 2018 , unenvironment . org / news- and-stories / story / putting-brakes-fast-fashion
Pandemic spills into ocean health
Individual and community response to COVID-19 has starkly illustrated the way human behaviour and attitudes towards waste becomes a health hazard for nature .
PHOTO : 123RF
REPORT BY BRAD COLLIS
The detritus of a human
pandemic – face masks , rubber gloves and hand sanitiser bottles – dance in ocean currents like schools of phantasmal sea creatures . Billions of single-use plastics produced to combat coronavirus have joined rubbish flowing into rivers and drains that tip into the world ’ s oceans .
Marine life may have been spared the virus , but not its litter legacy . Pandemic pollution will remain an ugly reminder of this human health tragedy for decades .
The waste generated by the world ’ s response to COVID-19 is a telling subtext to a modern-day pandemic . For example , the material of choice for face masks is polypropylene fabric – a plastic .
The mass of waste generated ( and captured luridly on social media around the globe ) raises the stakes even higher for efforts to rein in plastics pollution , which was already at crisis levels . The response needs science , education and community dialogue – all of which are at the heart of the University of Portsmouth ’ s ‘ Revolution Plastics ’ – one of the most ambitious and determined initiatives , locally and globally , to modify the manufacture , use and disposal of plastics .
Revolution Plastics was in planning long before COVID-19 struck , but it was officially launched in late November 2020 when many in the world were already voicing concerns about the pollution being generated .
AGENT OF CHANGE Revolution Plastics ’ task is now even greater , but it has at the helm Director of the University of Portsmouth ’ s Sustainability and the Environment research theme Professor Steve Fletcher , an internationally recognised campaigner for change .
“ We ’ re experiencing a climate crisis , a biodiversity crisis and a pollution crisis ,” he says . “ These are interrelated and affect our lives through our climate , the food we eat , the air we breathe , and our personal health and wellbeing . The relationship between people and nature has broken down . It has to be repaired . Now .”
Revolution Plastics sets out to create a new plastics economy based on improved recyclability , government policy support , and community engagement to achieve systemic change in the use and disposal of plastics . It is part of the University ’ s vision to turn itself and its home community , Portsmouth , into a ‘ sustainability hub ’ that will accumulate knowledge , experience and data and be a global model : “ It ’ s about transitioning away from unsustainable and polluting practices to a future in which sustainable plastics manufacturing and consumption is the norm ,” Professor Fletcher says . Crucially , Professor Fletcher is an adviser to the United Nations on ocean resources and plastic pollution . This places him in a position to network people and institutions , and to combine local community actions with global responses . After presenting to an OECD / G20
ISSUE 02 / 2021
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