Want to save the planet? Wear your jeans two days a week, wash them every fifth day, and let them dry by themselves. Or better still don't wash them at all. And don't even think of ironing them. This is the conclusion of a report commissioned by France's environment agency on the ecological impact of a pair of denims. The study looked at an "average" pair of jeans - made of 600gm (1lb 5oz) of denim, lined with 38gm (just over an ounce) of polyester, with six rivets and a button, worn one day a week for four years, washed every third time in a highenergy machine at 40C and, in a singularly French twist, ironed before wear. ... It concluded that a French jeans wearer would damage the environment the least by buying denims made of cotton from a country not too far from Europe with strict anti-pollution laws. Machine washing, tumble drying, and ironing caused 47% of the eco damage the jeans caused - 240kWh of energy a year, equal to using 4,000 lightbulbs, each of 60 watts, for an hour. Dry cleaning was "an environmental disaster".
This is the conclusion of a report commissioned by France's environment agency on the ecological impact of a pair of denims. The study looked at an "average" pair of jeans - made of 600gm (1lb 5oz) of denim, lined with 38gm (just over an ounce) of polyester, with six rivets and a button, worn one day a week for four years, washed every third time in a highenergy machine at 40C and, in a singularly French twist, ironed before wear.
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It concluded that a French jeans wearer would damage the environment the least by buying denims made of cotton from a country not too far from Europe with strict anti-pollution laws. Machine washing, tumble drying, and ironing caused 47% of the eco damage the jeans caused - 240kWh of energy a year, equal to using 4,000 lightbulbs, each of 60 watts, for an hour. Dry cleaning was "an environmental disaster".
Not that I wear jeans, but at last someone who speaks my language! And when I think that I get scoffed at when people see my unironed tee-shirts ...
How about: wear fewer clothes more often, wash them less often and don't iron them? guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
