Eco clothing - adventures in hippiesville

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

Caporegime
Joined
17 Feb 2006
Posts
29,263
Location
Cornwall
I occasionally bang on about how doomed we all are. Naturally I merely add to the problem with my own privileged western lifestyle and continual microaggressions against the planet.

So spent a good couple minutes googling crap I'd heard people talking about. How hemp clothing is so great, and stuff. How cotton farming and processing uses 50% of the entire chemical usage of modern agriculture. And learned about stuff like GOATSE:

GOTS the leading organic textile standard - GOTS (global-standard.org)

So far, so good. Time to get on board this train to the new peace and love reality. Let's google "GOTS organic clothing UK".

Fifty women's-clothing-only sites later, a couple that cater to men too (I guess women just care more about the planet and us blokes aren't all that into it.)

Basic t-shirt : £100
Sweatshirt : £200
Jeans : £180

What the actual elf? Surely this is a joke? I don't think I've ever spent more than £5 on a t-shirt, thanks to our mutual Bangladeshi sweatshop friends.

So, GD, have you got on this crazy train yet? Do you buy organic hemp clothing? How many t-shirts can you buy before you need to re-mortgage your house?

And are there any places that sell GOTS-certified clothing that normal people can afford?

Peace, and love.
 
I used to think £45 was the top end for a pair of 501's back in the 90's lol
Now i'm happy with anything as who cares, men 35+ looking at other men to see which labels they are wearing? does that go on?
 
Rroff said:
You must be behind the times ;)

£180 on jeans isn't that exceptional but a basic t-shirt is a bit LOL.
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It would be (exceptional) for me, but then I'm still working my way up to a 5% stake in a Gucci belt via timeshare. Think the most expensive jeans I've ever bought were £60. They sucked, and shortly afterwards I came to the realisation that I hate jeans anyway.
 
First result I clicked on from google:

https://www.thehempshop.co.uk/hempiness-organic-everyday-hemp-t-shirt.html

caters to men, t-shirt costs £22.50 (granted it is a blend of hemp and cotton)

While that's still a bit pricey for a basic t-shirt, pretty sure I've spent say £10 or £12 on regular cotton t-shirts before and not thought much of it and tbh.. I've got way, way more t-shirts than I actually need so I guess if I were a bit more careful then I could have just got the hemp version.
 
dowie said:
First result I clicked on from google:

https://www.thehempshop.co.uk/hempiness-organic-everyday-hemp-t-shirt.html

caters to men, t-shirt costs £22.50

granted that's still a bit pricey for a basic t-shirt, pretty sure I've spent say £10 or £12 on regular cotton t-shirts before and not thought much of it and tbh.. I've got way, way more t-shirts than I actually need so I guess if I were a bit more careful then I could have just got the hemp version.
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Doesn't appear to be GOTS certified, from my quick glance at it.

So this is something else my 2 min google taught me - the word "organic" is not regulated in the clothing space. Any company can use it for any reason on any product. It's literally meaningless.

And the non-GOTS (the US and EU have alternate certification bodies) hemp clothing can be made using the same chemicals and processes as cotton clothing. Hence they're still pretty bad for the environment.

GOTS-certified stuff includes not being able to use pesticides, herbicides, chemical dyes, chemical processing (etc etc).
 
FoxEye said:
Doesn't appear to be GOTS certified, from my quick glance at it.
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I don't think it claims to be, though AFAIK hemp generally isn't GOTS certified it is generally organic though (then again I guess that might not be proven). What's the URL for the £100 t-shirt place?
 
dowie said:
Here we go, a GOTS (and 100 OCS, whatever that is???) certified hemp/cotton t-shirt:

https://switch2hemp.com/product/hemp-tshirt-black/

30 EUR
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Banner at the top says, "This is a testing store for demo purposes - no orders will be fulfilled."

Pretty sure that one isn't a real shop!

But yeah, with additional googling I'm sure I can get the price down a bit. But still fairly damned expensive.

And for all the talk of hemp being a super planet-friendly cotton alternative, it's interesting to note how many of these products are 50% cotton 50% hemp. That's still a lot of cotton..
 
FoxEye said:
Banner at the top says, "This is a testing store for demo purposes - no orders will be fulfilled."

Pretty sure that one isn't a real shop!

But yeah, with additional googling I'm sure I can get the price down a bit. But still fairly damned expensive.

And for all the talk of hemp being a super planet-friendly cotton alternative, it's interesting to note how many of these products are 50% cotton 50% hemp. That's still a lot of cotton..
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Oh oops, I got to it from a hemp wholesaler.

You haven't posted the link to the £100 t-shirt place?
 
Just LOL if you don't have 17 identical plain white Comme de Garcons tees which you fold horizontally to maximise shelf space and avoid the cursed half fold look.

Noobs.
 
In the good old days of the internet, goatse meant something very different.
 
A lot of the reason cheap cotton t-shirts are cheap is because of them being mass produced. Hemp, or other material t-shirts, don't have the benefits of scale yet. I also think there is a bit of price gauging as people wanting to make an ecological change are prepared to pay more.

But the best way to reduce your ecological impact with clothing is simply to buy fewer clothes, whichever material they are made from.
 
Hades said:
A lot of the reason cheap cotton t-shirts are cheap is because of them being mass produced. Hemp, or other material t-shirts, don't have the benefits of scale yet. I also think there is a bit of price gauging as people wanting to make an ecological change are prepared to pay more.

But the best way to reduce your ecological impact with clothing is simply to buy fewer clothes, whichever material they are made from.
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Or buy second-hand from charity shops etc.
 
Interesting.

I tend to wear clothes that are sustainable or eco friendly that last forever even when abused.

fjallraven, Patagonia etc

While a tee is a tee, I tend to find that when out and about the hills, or camping or on holiday etc they technical clothing is a lot more comfortable.
 
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