Clothing Waste, Problems and Alternatives. Activity: Sewing a Button

What happens when we bin our clothes?

When we bin our clothes they end up in landfill, just like when we throw our rubbish in the bin. Millions of tonnes of clothes end up in landfill or are incinerated each year. One tonne is the weight of one car, so think of the weight of millions of cars. That's a lot of clothes!

In Ireland, around 225,000 tonnes of clothes end up in our landfills. Many clothes are made up of plastic. Once they clothes end up in landfill they cannot decompose/breakdown. So they stay on the earth for hundreds of years.

This causes problems for our wildlife and our plants. Clothes take up space so animals have no where to live and plants can't grow. Sometimes the animals confuse the clothes for food and this makes them sick. Plastic from clothes end up in our oceans and it harms our sea life. Plastic and releases C02 into the air and this causes global warming. Woolen clothes release methane. Coloured clothes are coloured using chemicals. These chemicals can get into our rivers and oceans and make animals sick.

We can stop this from happening. Almost all of our clothes can be recycled.

What to do when you do not want your clothes to reduce our environmental impact?

1. Give our clothes to charity shops.

2. Swap our clothes with family and friends.

3. Sell and rent our clothes on clothing apps.

4. Mend our clothes if they have holes and loose seems.

5. Give our old and holey clothes to a recycling center.

Activity: Sewing a Button onto Old Fabric or Jacket

Resources Needed:

Button

Sewing Needle

Thread

Fabric

By teaching your children the basics of sewing, they have the skills to do basic and the most repairs that our clothes need; sewing on a button, fixing a hole. It may also inspire them to develop these skills to do more advanced things such as design their own clothes and use their creativity to use other form of clothing design such as knitting. By doing so, will reduce our environmental impact.