Plastic Free Fashion

Today's prompt for #setmeplasticfree is "fashion" and I have a lot of thoughts on the fashion industry (explained much more in my #slowfashionseason post here from July 3rd) but basically the TLDR is we all need to buy less, make conscientious choices, and think about how ethical our wardrobes really are. For those of us (🙋🏼‍♀️) who don't always have the money to buy from responsible, organic and ethical brands who pay workers a fair wage and are responsible to the environment, buying second hand is a great option. This way we aren't voting with our money for companies that don't care about their workers or the planet.



For ages I felt that buying pretty much everything secondhand was guilt free no matter what the purchase, but lately I'm paying much more attention to fabrics too. No matter how our clothes are sourced, what they're made of is an important consideration when trying to reduce plastic waste. Synthetic fabrics such as acrylic, polyester, fleece and nylon all shed tiny plastic particles in the wash which are released into our waterways and oceans. These microplastics don't biodegrade and are extremely harmful to marine life. You can wash synthetics in a guppy bag to catch any microfibres, which is something I want to look into buying. But because so many clothes are made from cheap synthetic fabrics it seems to me that this needs to be addressed on a bigger scale - we've banned microbeads from cosmetics due to plastic pollution but clothing seems to be somewhat overlooked?

Luckily most children's clothes are made from cotton but I have a LOT of synthetic fabrics in my wardrobe as it's not something I'd ever really considered until recently! Has anyone tried using a guppy bag? 🐟