Finally we have some decent ethical sportswear! Yew Clothing has recently launched in the UK, selling base layers, T-shirts and fleece jackets for active wear. They’re made out of recycled polyester, with casual wear T-shirts in organic cotton. The company was founded by Jun Wong and Kresse Wesling this summer. Both Jun and Kresse have been into sport since they were kids, Jun used to do athletics, karate and rugby and now participates in triathlons, as well as running, climbing and snowboarding.

 

He says, “I had the original idea for the business two and a half years ago. I wanted to do something involving sportswear and I wanted it to be sustainable.” It took a long time – almost a year and a half - to source fabric, find a socially responsible factory and design the garments. “The biggest challenge was finding the fabric,” says Jun, “and without that it you really can’t design a line properly.” The fabric is made in Taiwan from recycled consumer plastic, which means an energy saving of 52 percent compared to other garments. It’s also light weight, wicking and dries quickly.

The everywear top (a T-shirt designed for active sports) and the warming jacket (a thin but very warm fleece), which I tried, were both cut brilliantly and wicked sweat away exceptionally well. The company is transparent about their policies, pointing out that the thread is not recycled, the reflective Yew print is made from water-based latex ink and the labels are made from standard polyester and cotton but that they’re working on alternatives. Both Jun and Kresse have spent time at the factory in Turkey, which they say has high quality conditions for staff. You can see photos of it and find out where it is from their website.

 

When I mention the difficulties I’ve had trying to track down ethical sportswear in this country, Jun agrees: “We have a huge amount of respect for Patagonia, who led the way and we’re trying to emulate them, but we feel that we could do something more geared towards the UK market – and there’s definitely a need for more choice.” Right now Yew Clothing has a limited choice but they’re currently working on strappy tops for yoga and running vests and hope to have developed leggings and three-quarter Capri pants by winter 2010.

 

If you want to purchase anything from Yew Clothing, Jun is offering a 10% discount using the code SPECIAL10.

www.yewclothing.com

Pictures courtesy of Yew Clothing

Claire Macauley epitomises all that’s wrong with ethical fashion. She works incredibly hard and has designed an elegant, timeless collection made in the UK in socially responsible factories from organic fabric and wool and yet she’s struggling. “I have to lower prices,” she says. Manufacturing here in the UK is not proving viable for her brand, Anatomy: once Britain specialised in making clothes and weaving cloth yet now skills and machinery have been lost. “It can cost £85 to have a jacket sewn in a traditional British factory,” says Claire, “and when you add on the cost of materials, shipping and marketing, I’m losing money.” Claire is thinking of switching to a Lithuanian factory which does have responsible working practises but could reduce her costs as it operates on a large scale.

 

As for fabrics, she’s currently sourcing organic cotton, hemp and bamboo from America and using end of the line wool from a Scottish mill, but is finding that too few people produce organic fabric and those that do are unwilling to sell in small quantities. She’s considering continuing to use natural fibres but ones that aren’t certified organic as a way to cut costs. Then, of course, there’s the dye process. Claire has been hand dyeing the silk herself. She says, “I do everything, create the patterns, cut them out, make samples, do the ordering, track everything that is sold.” She adds, “Cost is a problem. Ethical clothes are side-lined and we should be part of fashion, we should be the icing on the cake. But the prices put people off.”

 

Claire had a varied career, starting out in a band, knocking around with legends like Joe Strummer. She worked for a costumier, formed her own company and styled for commercials before finding it all too stressful and heading to Devon where she launched her Anatomy label. Anatomy is all about tailoring, from the classic Tuxedo jacket, which looks perfect with skinny jeans or Claire’s signature cigarette pants, to the Edwardian jacket made out of bamboo denim with scarlet buttons, to my favourite, the Victorian-esque fencing jacket, which has been reinvented for spring 2010 in charmeuse (a mix of silk and hemp) with a wild fuschia lining. For next season there are playful striped blazers, pencil skirts and some clean cut tunics made of hemp linen with vintage trim. Her clothes would work both in the office or for going out with friends. “I want to be able to make a living out of this – I’ve got to make it work,” she says.

Pictures courtesy of Anatomy

In September the largest haul of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered in this country was dug up in Staffordshire. I suspect that future generations will not unearth anything quite so exciting; rather they will be deciphering our lifestyle from the motley collection of yoghurt pots and plastic packaging we routinely send to moulder in landfill.

 

Last month TerraCyle stepped in to try and alleviate some of this mess. The US company turns hard to recycle waste into stylish goods: in the UK they’ve just launched a new collection of totes, shoppers and planters made out of Kenco and Tassimo coffee packaging.  The idea is that we will collect and send in the packaging and be paid a handsome 2p per packet; Kraft, the company behind Kenco, will donate 2p to a UK charity and TerraCycle will transmogrify them into something useful.

 

In the states the company has collected 200 million pieces of packaging over the past three years and donated $250,000 to schools and other non-profit organisations. They don’t just stick to coffee but collect non-recyclable food wrappers, from crisp bags to cookie covers, which end up as rather cool backpacks, pencil cases and homework folders. Over a third of all US schools are involved in collecting this waste; TerraCycle pays all shipping costs and the packaging is converted in “environmentally responsible facilities” in Mexico and El Salvador. It doesn’t make sense for our waste to be shipped over there but the company is still looking for a factory in mainland Europe.

 

It’s a genius idea, a fantastic way for schools to generate income (though I’m not suggesting kids collect coffee packaging) and the CEO, college drop-out Tom Szaky, who is only 27, has just been named number one American CEO under the age of thirty by Inc. magazine. Somehow, in between all the charitable donations, the company has wracked up sales of $8 million last year. I’d describe TerraCycle’s products as geek chic – I’d like to see every school kid using them; I can imagine myself popping down to my local organic supermarket, ratcheting up street cred with my new coffee shopper - but I can’t quite see myself drinking cocktails in a bar sporting one on my arm. Still, VP Albe Zakes tells me they’ve been featured in Vogue and Glamour so perhaps I’m just not hip enough.

My brother got married this weekend.  It was a fairytale wedding: the bride looked radiantly beautiful, my brother, handsome and happy. But more importantly, what did I wear? Here I am in my ethical outfit – jewellery handed down from my mother; dress designed and made by my friend Lora, which I paid for with home-grown vegetables; jacket by Vivienne Westwood, bought on e-bay; shoes, also Vivienne Westwood, made by a traditional East End cobbler, new a good few years ago and still in pretty good nick, hand bag sewn by a local seamstress from a second-hand sari. I would have liked to wear a fascinator (fantastic word isn’t it, I’ve just discovered that’s what those twiddly bits you put in your hair at weddings are called) but can’t imagine those feathers were gathered from the hedgerows without pain to any wild fowl.

 

As for the wedding present – a set of cushion covers sewn by me. If I was gifted they might have been a breeze but instead they required much time and a deal of cussing.

 

Charity shops, vintage, e-bay, dress agencies,  making your own or borrowing a friend’s frock seems like a good way forward for those special occasions – but if you haven’t the time or inclination then I’ve got a few other suggestions. This year I’ve attended a number of weddings and have worn dresses from Enamore, From Somewhere and Karen Cole, teamed up with vintage shrugs or jackets or, in one case, a hand-me-down cardi.

 

I’d also try internet-shopping sites Ascension or Fashion Conscience; House of Tammam say they do mother-of-the-bride type outfits, not to mention the bride herself, in luxurious cream silk hand-embroidered dresses; Anatomy are bringing out a range of simple shift dresses in hemp linen with vintage fabric detailing paired with silk tailored jackets for spring 2010; Izzy Lane is fantastic for classic separates that would see you through many other formal occasions; Get Cutie do feminine frocks in riotous prints and Lowie’s cool cream knitted tea dress edged in navy only requires a cocktail and a sea breeze to turn you into Daisy out of The Great Gatsby. But if you’re really strapped for cash, take a look at The Uniform Project: even though Sheena Mathieken is wearing the same dress every day of the year, she still manages to look chic at a wedding.

Pictures copyright Sanjida O'Connell

When I worked at the BBC I had to sign a form declaring any interests. This meant, was I having a relationship, no matter how tenuous or fleeting, with anyone else in the corporation. The reason was because our boss was “involved” with one of his own researchers. In the days before transparency became a media buzz word, the irony was that our boss had to explain why we now had this new and pretty personal paperwork.

 

So, to declare an interest here, I used to be a very big fan of The Body Shop. I use their Coca Body Butter because it’s the only thing moisturising enough for my skin; the men’s deodorant because it works and I don’t like girly smells; I keep a tube of Hemp Hand protector in my handbag and a stick of lip balm on my desk. It is affordable, accessible, the products are not tested on animals and the chain pioneered what they call Community Trade – a fair wage, plus a bit – to farmers and workers in developing countries. They also used to collect empty bottles for recycling.

 

Now The Body Shop is about to launch an organic skin care range called Nutriganics. In a focus group The Body Shop asked a group of women what they thought about organic skin care products. Unfortunately, they said they smelt earthy, were a bit hippyish and wouldn’t work.

 

Nutriganics is certified organic, does not smell earthy nor look a bit hippyish. It has a pleasantly nutty, fresh smell. It contains at least 34% certified organic ingredients and community traded babussu oil from a wild grown Brazilian nut hand-picked by a women’s co-operative. Three hundred women said the creams are not sticky and are well absorbed; the night cream has been clinically proven to reduce the appearance of wrinkles. “We’re incredibly excited. It’s the first new skin care brand we’ve launched since 2005,” says Marishka Morolia, senior category and innovations manager for skin care, who, incidentally, has flawless skin.

 

I’m excited too – about a proper range of certified organic skin care that is affordable – and also at the opportunity to ask all those questions that have been niggling away and have meant The Body Shop is no longer the all time favourite beauty destination it once was for me. Before founder Anita Roddick died, The Body Shop was sold to L’Oreal. The chain’s ethical rating, as scored by Ethical Consumer, plummeted, the main reason being that L’Oreal still tests some of its ingredients on animals.

 

Marishka argues that L’Oreal has given The Body Shop more resources than the company would ever have had access to: there is a lab entirely dedicated to research into natural products, and some of the ethical products developed are infiltrating the rest of the corporation. L’Oreal’s buying power is huge, meaning deals can be pushed through that were out of The Body Shop’s league before.

 

I ask why The Body Shop uses Community Trade instead of Fairtrade. I’m always a little sceptical when companies make up their own rules instead of adhering to widely recognised standards. Their press officer points out that Fairtrade has only become applicable to beauty products this year, yet Community Trade was pioneered by The Body Shop twenty years ago.

 

Then I ask why everything has so many chemicals in – even though the company gives the appearance of being committed to ethical beauty – most products are packed full of parabens, laureth sulphates and the like – which well may be harmful to us and the environment. No one gives me a straight answer on this one, but having at least one certified organic skin care series of products shows that it can be done.

 

And for the sake of continuing to declare an interest, I also like Green People’s Vita Min Fix, Essential Care’s Avocado Replenishing Cream, Neal’s Yard Frankincense Nourishing Cream and plain old almond oil with a few drops of rose and sandalwood in it. But sadly I don’t expect that anything you buy without a prescription, wipe on your face, that’s kind to you skin and good to the environment is going to magically make your wrinkles disappear.

 

 

I first heard of John-Paul Flintoff when I read his wife Harriet Green’s hilarious article about living with the king of make do and mend. As she put it, it’s wonderful to live with a man who doesn’t call in an electrician when a plug needs a new fuse but less funny when he stops you buying a pair of J Brand jeans and offers to sew them for you himself.

 

My next encounter with J-P was when I read a blog of his in The Ecologist in which his daughter makes shoes out of cabbage leaves and he explores a bikini woven from nettles. As I’d just written a blog for The Guardian about spinning fibre from nettles too, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by his new book: Through the Eye of a Needle: The true story of a man who went searching for meaning and ended up making his Y-fronts.

 

J-P’s journey begins with him standing in a cubicle in New York in his underpants while a laser scans him, taking 200,000 measurements for a bespoke suit and ends up with him crocheting his own underpants. In his book, Harriet frequently tells him he’s not allowed out in his homemade clothes but ends with her, “grinding my jaws as I type this, it seems his time has come.”

 

I have to warn you now, Through the Eye of a Needle is utterly bonkers. It is by no means an exploration of the fashion industry by the unfashionable á  la Fred Pearce and his Confessions of an Eco Sinner. For J-P starts with his bespoke suit on the very trip to research sweatshops in New York without asking who sewed his suit, then returns to England and hires a lady in India to do his chores for him whilst paying her a pittance. Before he gets on with making his own pants, plus wearing a hat he’s woven out of a plastic bag, he explores various religions. So basically this book is a ramshackle collection of ideas the author had for newspaper features (he writes for The Sunday Times), strung like so many paper mâche beads on the string of his own life. But it is

 

a)     funny

b)     heartwarming. I do like the idea of men sewing. Most men I know would do a much better job than me if they could stop making a fuss about having a Y chromosome

c)      there is a serious message. J-P says, “There’s nothing we can do except as individuals. So my project to make an entire outfit myself is good for me and it’s good for the world. It’s good for you.”

d)      you have to love a man who asks his local seamstress to cut a paper pattern of his favourite shirt and when she asks if he’s ever made anything like this before, replies, “I made a jacket for my daughter’s teddy bear.”

“So it didn’t need fitting?”

“Well, it had to fit the bear.”

 

No wonder Vivienne Westwood said, “I don’t really understand what you’re doing but I wish you every success.”

Photo of John-Paul and his daughter Nancy, crocheting on a street corner, by Harriet Green
 

I could tell I was getting nearer to London Fashion Week’s new location at Somerset House as the heels clicking past became more insane – vertiginous, scarlet, leopard-print – and the men no longer seemed to be wearing the male uniform of untucked shirt and jeans. This is the seventh season for Estethica – the ethical bit of London Fashion Week.

 

It’s a fantastic start but still very small compared with the behemouth that is LFW. There were some exciting newcomers this season (spring/summer 2010): Ajna, soft knitwear made in Peru from alpaca and organic cotton, designed by Beryl Man, who used to work for Donna Karan; Lowie, who had the cutest thin knits in candy pink and green and retro navy and blue, and Lehee, with soft, draped tailored cuts. Christopher Raeburn, who makes parkas, jackets and dresses out of ex-military parachutes had an ethereally beautiful yet totally tough-looking collection.

 

Ethical fashion is beginning to escape from its niche: Beyond Skin are launching a capsule collection of ballet pumps in the new Anthropologie store opening in October on Regent’s St and Ciel is about to start a range within Monsoon. The Environmental Justice Foundation has a range of organic cotton T-shirts with new designs by Luella, Katharine Hamnett, Richard Nicoll and Giles Deacon. Shared Talent was shown on the Monsoon stand – a project funded by Defra and with the support of the Indian Government, showcasing UK and Indian designers, with all the garments made from sustainable Indian textiles. There are also rumours that Orsola de Castro, founder of From Somewhere and co-curator of Estethica will be making a huge splash with a large retailer later this year too. Watch this space!
 

Photo courtesy of Ciel

 

I walk, bike, box, dance, run, rock climb, and do pilates. The kind of clothes I need are probably pretty similar to the outfits the majority of us might require for most sports that don’t involve being voluntarily immersed in water. Here’s my suggestions for the best ethical brands that I’ve tried (starting with light weight activities and getting harder):

 

Gossypium

The company declined to get back to me but they were rated highest in the Ethical Consumer’s 2008 report on sportswear. Their cotton comes from small Indian, organic farms certified by SKAL, a European organic inspection agency and FLO, the worldwide Fairtrade Standard Setting and Certification Organisation, and they are committed to paying a fair wage and ensuring their factory workers have decent conditions.

I have a pair of their yoga pants, which are hard wearing and flattering and have lasted well over a decade. I wear them for light runs and pilates. However, if you’re going to do anything that’ll raise your pulse rate, don’t bother with the T-shirts. Cotton is not a great performance fabric as it chafes when wet and won’t last. Keep the Tees for normal wear.

 

www.gossypium.co.uk

 

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It’s all very well wearing the latest little dress from People Tree, organic T-shirts and shopping for vintage, but what happens when we get to the gym? Or go for a walk requiring something warm and usually waterproof? Generally exercise and outdoor gear is not known for its ethical credentials (I’m going to look at trainers another day). Whilst some clothing companies can boast a smidgeon of organic cotton, this is generally not what you want to wear for exercising. “You’re at an obvious disadvantage if you wear cotton,” says Kerry McCarthy, the gear editor at Runner’s World, “It’s not breathable, it retains moisture, it gets heavy and then hangs off your body. And the chafing causes runner’s nipple.” (Bleeding nipples for those who don’t run or wear sports bras).
 

The mainstream alternative is to wear performance fabrics that do a proper job – they don’t chafe, they wick moisture away, cool you down or keep you warm – but generally they’re made of polyester, which is a resource-hungry petrol-derived material. Kerry suggests bamboo as being the next big thing. Northface, who make outdoor clothing, declined to respond to my queries but they have launched a new line of performance wear fabric made using fast-growing bamboo that’s burnt, spun into polyester-like material and is UV-resistant, wicking, insulating and odour-beating. Sounds like a solution but unfortunately, according to the Soil Association, the process of turning bamboo into material relies on the same nasty chemicals that are used to produce viscose.

 

 

As for exercise gear’s ethical credentials… last year Ethical Consumer carried out a comprehensive report on sportswear and it’s enough to make you hang up your trainers for good. It is a litany of woe: Chinese workers paid less than half the minimum wage, forced over-time, forced labour, child labour, wages withheld, the use of PVC (which has been criticised for its environmental impact in production, use and disposal and because it contains toxic chemicals). Down, for instance, used in Berghaus sleeping bags and jackets, is plucked from live geese from the time they’re six weeks old to four years. Workers at Kappa factories, for example, had never heard of a worker’s code of conduct; workers for Timberland were coached to provide false answers to factory inspectors and had a month’s wage’s docked if they resigned; a secret pipe laid in China discharged 20,000 tonnes of waste water per day into the river system from an Adidas factory; workers for Fila complained about being made to work 24 hours straight at times of peak production. I could go on but my eyes are starting to bleed.

 

One bit of good news is that Nike has committed to blending organic cotton into its mainstream products – by 2010 the company claims its entire range of cotton clothes will contain 5% organic cotton, and has begun to incorporate recycled polyester into the rest. After being severely criticised a number of years ago, the company has fostered greater levels of transparency: you can download a list of their factories from their website, for instance, and they have developed a matrix system for evaluating the environmental impact of their products.  Next week I’ll look at the best ethical exercise gear going.

Photo copyright Sanjida O'Connell
 

Striving to be the best July/August 08 www.ethicalconsumer.org

 

Oxfam International: Offside! Labour rights and sportswear production in Asia 24 May 2006 www.oxfam.org.uk

 

A survey of leading politicians and environmental campaigners by Ethical Consumer Magazine has thrown up that throwaway fashion is one of the least ethical practices in our society and should be banned. So sewing your own is the way forward! I can now sew, after a fashion, since I’ve just done a course. I’ve got some material. I’ve even got a sewing machine. It’s my mother’s forty-year-old Singer that cost her a week and a half’s salary. It wasn’t working but finally I found a man who did not say, “Look love, just buy a new one,” but actually fixed it.

 

This is the beast I was scared of as a teenager, mainly because I didn’t know how to use it and was too impatient to listen. This was the monster I ran my first clothes up on at school – drawing round my legs in my jeans and zipping up an inner seam to create skin-tights before skinnies came into fashion, knocking up an ankle-length green skirt with a zip from hem to thigh covered with a cloud of black lace. I’m less scared now that I’ve gone to sewing school and the nice older gent showed me how to thread the beast. And the forty-year old instructions are still there!

 

 

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There is something alluring about it: it has boho chic, a touch of glamour, a glimmer of retro and almost zero guilt. Rag Trade is Bristol’s only dress agency, selling second-hand clothes on behalf of customers. Somewhere between vintage store, charity shop and ebay, dress agencies are a way of being an ethical shopper but one that takes the leg work out of bidding, selling, sifting through rails of rubbish and appeals to the average woman who doesn’t want to wear another era’s clothes.

 

“The worst thing I’ve been given was Primark – dirty Primark too,” says Cree Jones, owner of Rag Trade. What Cree specialises in are mid to high end high street and designer. The practicalities are that the profits are split 50:50 with the customer. Each garment spends four weeks at the agreed price, is then reduced by a third for two weeks, before retailing for £5-10 and finally ends up in a charity shop if still unsold. “People bring in their clothes to make money,” says Cree bluntly, “the market on ebay has changed and it’s hard to sell, particularly designer clothes, because there are a lot of fakes. People also often say, ‘I would take this to charity but it’s too nice.’” Customers can, of course, receive cash but 600 have chosen to set up an account and use their earnings to buy something new. “They don’t feel as if they’re spending and also it’s a bargain so people don’t feel as guilty,” says Cree, adding, “It’s about making decent clothes more affordable and accessible.”

 

 

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A friend of mine is buying a house. He shows me the blurb excitedly – there are two double wardrobes in the bedroom. “For her, her and a tiny bit leftover for him,” says Lovely Frisbee Man acidly. We’ve just moved in together and he still can’t get over my ‘need’ to take over most of our very large joint wardrobe. And if I’m honest, nor can I. Here I am, trying to dress ethically for a year so surely I should just accept that I have enough clothes to be warm, cool, dry, go out in, run around in, swim in, sit at my desk in and sleep in. Enough already! Yet, like most women, I can’t. I can’t quite believe that LFM only has two pairs of jeans and his out-on-the-razz-on-Friday-night outfit consists of one of them and a shirt – pretty much the same as in-on-Friday-night-with-pizza. I need more. Why? For the sake of ourselves and the planet, we ought to be able to make do with less.

I decide to ask psychiatrist Oliver James, who describes affluenza in his eponymous book as an epidemic, sweeping through the English-speaking world, an obsessive, envious malady, making us twice as prone to depression, anxiety and addictions than people in undeveloped nations.

 

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Who knew that an overlocker is the most prevalent piece of kit in fashion factories? Its lethal four needles race alongside a razor as it hems and seams our stretchy fabrics. Or that a run and fell is the seam that gives jeans their workaday look?

 

I’ve just finished a week’s sewing course. I felt that, as someone trying to grapple with sustainable fashion, I should learn how to make my own clothes. Or at least be able to hem a curtain. We start out by making a whole series of different types of seam and then put in a concealed zip. The trick is to sew it in then roll back the teeth and sew in another line of stitches. I do this ever so carefully, only to find I’ve sewn neatly down the edge of the zip without attaching it to any fabric. By day three I am losing the will to live. I struggle with a fly zip in a pair of shorts. Three pieces of material are required to make the zip and I cannot work out how they go together, how they attach to the shorts and what must be done in what order. In fact, I think that sewing should be compulsory, a kind of craft conscription, so that we will no longer take the intricacies of our clothes for-granted, think it’s fine to pay pennies for them and may have a modicum of understanding of what it is like to spend hours hunched over a sewing machine.

 

 

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“We started out as skint teenagers who had a passion for retro clothes and wanted to look different so we used to raid charity shops and customise our own clothes,” says Annika Sanders. Anni and her then skint teen friend, Kerry Seager, started buying men’s clothes from secondhand shops and reconstructing them into experimental creations to wear out clubbing in the early nineties. The duo now have a shop, Junky Styling, in the Truman Brewery, in Shoreditch. The story of their rise from rags, to well, funky rags, is chronicled in their new book, Junky Styling, just published by A&C Black. What makes them stand out is their use of men’s suits and shirts, literally, in some cases, turning them on their heads and into tailored, figure-hugging quirkily unique designs. When I visit there’s a basque made out of a man’s suit, shirt cuffs that are now a waistcoat, a bolero that was once a pair of trousers and a dress that used to be a shirt.

 

 

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Last week I wrote about the potential environmental problems with detergents – this week is a summary of the laundry products I think are the best. I warn you now, that as a trained scientist, I am aware that I have carried out a number of shockingly unscientific and wholly subjective tests. But I have trialled many products literally for years and have recently had the help of a number of my ecologically-minded neighbours. My problem is that LFM* and I do a lot of exercise so we’re concerned with sweat and mud. I realise people with children may well be more bothered about milk vomit and grass and others might be fixated on Shiraz stains. The bottom line is that if you want totally clean, sweat-free clothes, most eco detergents don’t cut it. It’s not surprising, says Phil Patterson, a textile consultant and founder of Colour Connections. He points out that to clean clothes you need hot water, lots of it, and detergent. Modern washing machines are designed to operate with less water and at lower temperatures than they used to do, which means you’re heavily reliant on the cleaning power of your detergent. Here’s my take on the best environmentally-friendly ones:

 

Soap pods– the nut of the Indian sapindus tree. They naturally contain soap (saponin) and work pretty well. Put 5-6 in a little bag, tie firmly, use three times and then compost. A totally free option I’ve read about is to use peeled conkers.

£10.50 for 500g

 

Ecoballs – they contain mineral salts and work by ionizing oxygen, which lifts out the dirt and grime. They’ll only work if you use all three and don’t put any detergent in with them.

£34.95 for three

Ingredients: Anionic surfactants, calcium carbonate, sodium carbonate, sodium metasilicate

 

On the plus side, these are both very green options: you can reduce fabric conditioner (and don’t need it for the balls) as well as the length of the rinse cycle and you’ll be releasing almost no chemicals. Also, per wash, they’re pretty cheap – Ecozone, the manufacturer of the original ecoballs, claim that they cost 3p per wash; soap pods are meant to be 50% cheaper than conventional or alternative laundry products. The balls are made of plastic but you can refill them with mineral pellets after 1,000 laundry cycles. However, neither option shifts stubborn stains, like make-up, or ingrained sweat, and the ecoballs made the colour run in my sports tops. The laundry doesn’t have that fresh (chemically-produced smell) we’re used to; the manufacturers suggest you add essential oils. Five drops didn’t do anything, fifteen made LFM smell like a flower and stained his shirts, which didn’t go down too well (eight seems to work).

 

Ecover stain remover  - recommended to me by a number of people. You paint it onto your clothes before you stick them in the wash. The eco balls also come with a stain remover (and a 30 day money-back trial period). Ecover is not recommended for wool or silk but is supposed to remove grease and protein stains such as blood, egg, grass, mud, milk, sweat, ice cream.

£2.89 for 200ml

Ingredients: Alkyl poly glycoside C10-16, sodium lauryl ether sulfate, sodium chloride, ethanol, perfume, cellulase, citric acid, subtilisin 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol linalool

 

 

Daylesford organics laundry liquid (concentrated) – the ingredients are all natural, organic and are not tested on animals. The detergent smells gorgeous as it is scented with either geranium or lavender essential oils. Good for wool, silk, cold or handwash cycles – don’t expect it to get rid of dirt and sweat in a normal wash. Plus it’s relatively expensive.

£4.75 for 1 litre

Ingredients: Vegetable oil soap, aqua, glucose-derived detergent, ethanol, natural anionic detergent, citrates, citric acid, geranium oil

 

AlmaWin heavy duty laundry powder (concentrated) – this was the best of all the environmentally-friendly alternatives I’ve tried (although, in general, modern machines work better with liquids rather than powder and you need to put the powder in the drum, not the drawer). The power contains no brighteners, petrochemicals, phosphates, chlorine, bulking agents, or colour-additives. It’s not the cheapest or the most eco option (compared to pods and balls) and it does contain biological enzymes (protease). Like enzymes in any detergent they will get your clothes cleaner, but they don’t just dissolve stains, they also go to work on fabric so your clothes will not last quite as long, and some people have an allergic reaction to them. Smells quite fresh, although not of lavender, which is what it contains. AlmaWin points out that the protease enzyme is the only one on the market that is not created by genetic engineering… AlmaWin was on a par with conventional detergents like Ariel and Persil, with the added benefit of containing no nasty chemicals, fewer allergens and is not tested on animals.

£7.80 per 1kg

Ingredients: saccharoidal surfactant, fatty alcohol sulphate, vegetable soap, phyllosilicates, soda, sodium bicarbonate, sodium percarbonate, poly aspartic acid, rice starch, citric acid, natural proteases, TAED, organic lavender essential oil

 

Bio-D concentrated laundry liquid (concentrated) – this doesn’t smell great in the bottle but has a nice, fresh, faint clean smell when the clothes are laundered. Shifted both dirt and all but the very worst sweat and does not contain enzymes. Bio-D comes in a recycled plastic bottle. Junky Styling, London-based designers who create fantastic garments from old suits and shirts, warn that soap can leave a scum stain on your clothes, although I haven’t found this so far. Since the ingredients for both Bio-D and Daylesford Organics are identical (apart from the essential oils) I’m concluding that it must be the amounts of the ingredients that varies.

£3.85 per litre

Ingredients: Vegetable oil soap, aqua, glucose-derived detergent, ethanol, natural anionic detergents, citrates, citric Acid

 

Good luck!

 

*LFM – Lovely Frisbee Man

 Photo of Eco balls courtesy of Ecozone

Believe it or not, the majority of the damage your clothes do the environment is not when they’re being made but when you get hold of them. On average, a typical garment is washed twenty times and this uses six times as much energy as it did to make it in the first place. A T-shirt, for example, if washed at 60°C, tumble dried and ironed, will lead to the release of 4kg of C0² - the equivalent of flying for 17 miles. If you forgo tumble drying and don’t iron, you can cut the carbon emissions and energy consumption of your laundry by half (I hang up my tops and dresses as soon as they come out of the wash to try and minimise ironing). And as we know, washing your clothes in an A rated machine and reducing the temperature helps massively (your energy consumption is reduced by 10% for every 10^oC reduction in temperature). So reducing the temperature, reducing the number of times you wash your clothes, forgoing tumble drying and cutting back on ironing will be better for the environment - but what damage is your detergent doing?

 

It’s really hard to find out exactly what’s in your laundry detergent – manufacturers aren’t obliged to give more than a cursory nod towards the ingredients – nor is it easy to work out how damaging these chemicals are. Basically, your washing powder contains surfactants, bleaches, builders and enzymes. Surfactants are what get your clothes clean; builders are added to make surfactants work better in hard water areas, bleaches release peroxide into your washing machine to remove stains like coffee and enzymes digest stains (and your clothes too, over time). There may also be a whole host of other things as well, such as optical brighteners to make your whites look whiter, dispersing agents to hold removed dye away from the fabric and Ph adjusters that alter the acidity of the water.

 

Unsurprisingly the detergent industry firmly maintains that there is nothing wrong with the chemicals they use and equally unsurprisingly fervent greenies think there is. Overall, some of what is released from your washing machine into the sewage system is efficiently mopped up by our treatment plants. However, around a quarter of all detergents sold in Europe contain phosphates (they’re a ‘builder’) and about a quarter of all the phosphates in our waterways come from our laundry (the rest is the run-off from farming). The consequence of this is eutrophication, where water weeds and algae thrive on the excess phosphate, grow wildly, suck up all the oxygen and smother aquatic life. Plus some surfactants are broken down to a chemical called nonylphenol, which is toxic to fish and causes ‘oestrogen activity’ in mammals. Oestrogen, as you know, is the hormone that helps women grow boobs. According to The Chemistry of the Environment by Bailey, Clark, Ferris, Krause and Strong (published by Academic Press 2002), it’s not clear whether there’s enough nonylphenol in our water to be fish-killing and breast-forming.

 

But just in case – you might want to try using an eco-detergent! Unfortunately, not that many are that good – so next week I’ll let you know the results of my eco-laundry trials…and tribulations.


Photos copyright Sanjida O'Connell

The trouble with shoes is that if they look fantastic, you can’t walk in them. More seriously, shoes can have up to 30 components, which means it’s hard to make a totally sustainable pair. As I’ve written before, there are ethical issues with leather. No longer simply a by-product of the meat industry, demand now outstrips supply and 14% of UK leather comes from non-bovine sources, such as foetal lambs, kangaroos and reptiles. Leather requires serious amounts of processing using a wide variety of chemicals including chrome, which is highly toxic and can cause cancer. Buying vegan shoes can be tricky: there are only a few good designers out there, you’re often forced to shop over the Internet and the materials used are either oil-derived polyurethane or fabric, which is neither particularly hard wearing nor waterproof. Another option is to go for an ethical leather shoe designer such as Timberland or Terra Plana. Terra Plana, which means flat land in Spanish, was bought by that stalwart of the British shoe shopper, Clarks, in 1998, and is now run by  young Clark, Galahad.

 

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If you wished (and particularly if you have a vegetable box) you could find out which farm produced your meat or cheese, where your vegetables came from, who grew your fruit and how they all reached you. You could even ring up the farmer and have a chat. You would be hard pressed to do the same with any item from your wardrobe. You can buy organic, Fairtrade food in the supermarket, in your local corner shop, at motorway service stations, in farmer’s markets, from veg boxes; any coffee you pick up in Dunkin’ Donuts or at the Hilton will be Fairtrade, as is every banana on sale in Sainsburys and Waitrose, along with every chocolate chip in a Ben and Jerry’s chocolate chip ice cream. But if you want the clothes on your back to be organic or Fairtrade you have to work a little harder. I estimate that the state of ethical clothing today is where food was 15 years ago.

           

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When I started my year of dressing ethically, I did the obvious and headed to the charity shops. It was a miserable experience; years of shoppers purchasing polyester at Primark have meant that many stores are packed with poor quality garments. The rise in obesity rates have resulted in fewer small sizes and the majority of the shops are laid out with Alice in Wonderland logic minus the Carroll charm. No wonder we need Mary to queen over the charity shops. Finding a pair of knickers and a dirty tissue in a handbag was the sartorial equivalent of watching a cockroach scuttle across the floor in a restaurant.

 

Yet second-hand is the way to go - it’s estimated that we throw away over a million tons of textiles a year, half of which could be recycled. Synthetic fibres take years to decompose and natural ones, like wool, release methane and contribute to around 2% of global warming emissions. If everyone in the UK bought one reclaimed woollen item, we would save 371 million gallons of water and 480 tons of chemicals. I thought I’d try vintage shopping instead.

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Last week I blithely ended my column by saying that to be fashionably ethical what we need to do is to buy fewer clothes. Yeah right. I bet even the people we know who are not interested in clothes have more than they need. I am and I most certainly do. There is something intrinsically hardwired in us, in our craving for novelty, the buzz we feel when we buy a new outfit, the feel-good factor from a fantastic frock or very sexy jeans.

 

I asked Tony Juniper, ex-director of Friends of the Earth and Green Party candidate, how he believed we could protect the planet by consuming less when most of us want more. He said, “We need to study psychology and find out more about the brain. Deep within us we have an innate desire for comfort, for security and for status. We need to get to grips with this and start crafting alternatives that get the same brain reaction.” Scientists have even found the part of the brain that we use when we want to buy something new (it’s the nucleus accumbens in the cortex, the outer layer of the brain).

 

 

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