Sustainable Design; To reduce energy and water use, chemical impacts and design for ethical production

This area of sustainable design in my eyes is the most important and the one that needs most change, the impact of chemical waste on the environment and on the people producing the garments or materials they are making. In todays lecture we learnt a few facts that i felt really hit home. The textile industry uses 25% of all the chemicals used worldwide which is a huge amount, 16% of those are used on cotton. The textile industry today is one of the largest producing greenhouse gases. There are many areas of the design process from beginning to end that have massive effects on environment and social issues including the different stages of the making process; Growing fibres, ship to spinners, create yarn, ship to dye plant, dye fibres, ship to factory, weave or knit fabric, dye and print/finish fabric, ship to factory, cut and sew product then ship to wholesaler/ retailer. a very long process with very important and harmful issues. All of the above require all these ways of working, labour,chemicals,water and transportation. all effecting the environment, the people making the clothes themselves and the future. should we be using water in our processes for dying clothes when there are less fortunate people that don't even have clean and fresh water to drink? somehow we need to reduce the use of harmful chemicals and working a way for less transportation during the design and making process. 

Hyun Jin Jeong 'Earth Dying' is something that really appeals to me, hyun uses natural products from the earth to dye her garments, she collected 45 different soils from south korea and the uk, after a lot of experimentation Hyun applied the soil based paints directly onto her fabrics resulting in beautiful hand dyed fabrics. 

www.ecouterre.com/soil-as-fabric-dye-earth-

Cara Piazza is also another very influential designer using natural ways of dying, her pieces are very unique and all ethically produced. using found materials to dye her fabrics within the area that she is in at the time, her graduate collection was based on london and mapping, she would walk the streets and on the way take everything in that she is passing by, becoming in touch with the outside and also making friendships with local produce shops along the way, she would collect weeds,flowers etc from the areas she was passing through and dye her fabrics with these creating a beautiful, unique collection. 

weareselecters.com

A print using red onion skins and blueberry from Cara Piazza

Rust and squid ink Print From Cara Piazza 

www.caramarienyc.com

This is a technique i tried using within my last project, i tired dying with different fruits and vegetables but they didn't now turn out how i planned them too, its something i would like to experiment a lot more within my next projects to see the different outcomes it produces. 

Another aspect of this area of sustainable design is the production of garments effecting our atmosphere and immediate environment, all these chemicals are producing harmful substances, an old new york train line has been converted into an urban garden and its quite magnificent, the locals wanted to bring a bit of nature and green to the urban streets of new york and this is how it turned out; 

An amazing space, created for people to socialise and walk among the urban,concrete jungle within a green jungle itself. Creating fresh air, a habitat for nature and an escape from the bust city life. 

Another project similar to this is the Promenade Plantee in Paris, an abandonned railway again been transformed into a green space, the park follows the route of the old railway. The park was designed and landscaped by architect Jacques Vergely and Phillipe Mathieus. A space reused for a little bit of garden heaven in amongst the busy city. 

www.urbanghostsmedia.com

I think this particular area of Sustainable design is the area which needs to see the most change, people,designers and companies need to be more aware of the effects these processes are having on the environment and to the people producing these garments. I think the only way to do that is to get the bare facts out there and known, if people/customers knew the effects these processes are having on the environment would they carry on buying garments from these companies? Knowing these facts and researching into this subject has made me think very seriously as a designer the route i would like to go down when making fabrics and garments, if there is ethical, healthier ways to make things then this is the way to go, and everybody should be thinking about it. 

Sustainable Design; Cyclability and minimising waste

This weeks lecture was based on design for cyclability and Design to minimise waste. both very important things in the design process for the future. Cyclability is based on 5 points within a life cycle: The raw material (fabric) then the manufacture (the process in which it is made) , the distribution ( the fabric or material being distributed all over the world then the use of the material, whatever it may be used for then it comes to the end of its life, the question is what happens after that? what happens when people get rid of there old clothes and materials, can they be used for something else. 

Recycling by itself, only postpones the arrival of the discarded material at landfill, where it may never biodegrade, may degrade very slowly, or may add harmful materials to the environment as it breaks down.

A genuinely sustainable future depends on creating closed loops, or cycles, for all industrial commodities. In a closed-loop, materials would never lose their value and would recycle indefinitely.

Livingston, B (2203) Forward Recycling of Synthetic Contract Textiles: a vision of the sustainable future, The Design Tex Group 

Exploring this i have looked at a few designers that have thought about up cycling and recycling clothing and materials. 

Rebecca Earley and Kate Goldsworthy took up cycling into there own hands by setting up a specific project based on the up cycling of old charity shop shirts, they would buy these shirts and then transform them into totally new pieces of clothing, using there various known techniques they had learnt they gave these shirts a new lease of life. within this they use no harmful chemicals or glues whilst transforming the shirts, meaning they can be up cycled again and again. 

Ecofashiontalk.com 

Earley and Goldsworthy, transform out of date, unloved clothing into beautiful vibrant new pieces and that is what cyclability is all about, taking something old and making it into something that can be used over and over again. 

Another part of cyclability that interests me is the 'worn again' campaign, there is something so exciting about taking something that has one use then making it into something totally different. A technique that anyone can do to reduce waste. Eurostar took part in worn again and took old uniforms, that their staff used and changed them into luggage bags that the staff could use. As most big companies, uniform changes are a frequent thing, so by using old uniforms to make new bags, means less waste from the uniforms. They go through a process of design, deconstruction, cleaning and manufacture. Here is the end product; 

I also did a Workshop with Jane Bowler, back in the summer, she is a fashion/accessories designer based in london, she uses old, new and very exciting everyday objects that you wouldn't think of. mostly using everyday plastics and materials found around the house, she uses hand dying techniques and heat forming/molding techniques. Jane's eye see's something that can be changed and molded into making something else, she makes beautiful handmade pieces that are now known all over the world and i had the pleasure of working with her for a day. She gave us all different objects that we had to make something with, i had old curtain rings, scraps of plastic and plastic tubing; here is what i made; 

Here is one of Jane Bowlers pieces; 

I think everybody can take up up cycling in any form, weather it be transforming old pieces of clothing or simply reusing materials and objects for another cause, this as a whole can reduce massively the amount we waste and just forget about when we throw things away.