Montecito

12/26/2024

04/24/2023

Did you know? The fashion industry produces 150 billion garments a year and 87% (40 million tons) end up in a landfill where they smolder and pollute the air or an incinerator.
Only 1% of all discarded clothing is actually recycled.
The average person today buys 60 percent more items of clothing than they did 15 years ago, but keep them for only half as long. The average garment may be worn as few as ten times before disposal.
The apparel industry is responsible for 4% of greenhouse gas emissions – the same as the countries of Germany, France and the U.K. combined. Unchecked, fashion production would account for 26% of all carbon emissions by 2050.
Fashion is one of the most polluting of all industries. Clothing is manufactured with highly toxic dyes and heavy metals that are flushed into clean water streams, rivers and aquifers where they sicken people and animals, harm ecosystems, and cause biodiversity loss.
The industry razes 150 million trees for cellulosic fabrics. Cattle grazing has contributed to deforestation in the Amazon and the leather produced from that region has been traced to global fashion brands’ shoes and bags.
Non-organic cotton farming heavily depletes and degrades soil. It is one of the world’s most pesticide intensive crops. These affect the health of farmers and populations nearby. The toxic farm runoff contaminates fresh waters, wetlands and aquifers and threatens biodiversity and eco-systems.l
62% of all clothing is made partially or entirely of synthetic fibers such as polyester which is a crude oil derivative. Petroleum is a non-renewable resource with significant negative impacts on the earth.
Up to 40% of fashion’s carbon emissions are from the production of polyester and polyester production is expected to grow by 47% over the next 10 years.
Washing our synthetic clothing accounts for 35% of all microplastics in the ocean making them the largest source of microplastic pollution in the world’s oceans. Microplastics infiltrate the food chain and, in a study in the Netherlands in March 2022, microplastics were found in the blood of 80% of those tested, half of which were PET (polyethylene terephthalate), the plastic material found in clothing.
Clothing production has doubled since 2000 and with a shifting population and consumption patterns, the fast fashion industry is expected to continue to grow. By 2030, one estimate suggests that clothing consumption will grow 63% along with a rise since 2015 of 2.4 billion people into the global middle class, and a recent report estimated the world is on track to triple clothing production by 2050.
The true cost of fast fashion’s cheap clothing is extracted from the industry’s factory garment workers. Workers are paid less than the minimum wage in countries in the global south which does not nearly constitute a “living” wage. Today 40 million people are living in ‘modern slavery’ with fashion the 2nd biggest contributor to this. Child labor is common.
In order for true recycling to take place, clothing must be collected, sorted and distributed to recyclers. These systems are in their infancy. Sorting is still done by hand. And while there are innovative technologies that can break down the fabric of used garments to make new clothing, many await business investment to scale their systems to the colossal size necessary. Fully scaled, however, these technologies could drive 80% circularity in the fashion industry.
Most major industries are highly regulated. But the fashion industry, one of the largest manufacturing industries on the planet, is almost entirely unregulated.

04/17/2023

Put plastic in the past.
An estimated 583 billion plastic bottles were produced in 2021. That is 100 billion more than were produced just five years ago.
This year, five trillion plastic bags will be used. That’s 160,000 every second!
Americans alone use half a billion drinking straws every day.
In 2017, packaging production constituted the highest-demanded use for plastic, with 146 million metric tons used.
The amount of single-use plastics used globally has tripled since the start of the pandemic, with takeout orders driving the increase.
Each year, enough Bubble Wrap is created globally to cover the distance between the earth and the moon.
In the U.S., we throw away more than 50 billion coffee cups every year. These are coated with plastic to laminate the inside and use plastic lids.
Around the world, people litter more than 4.5 trillion cigarette butts every year.

04/14/2023

Did you know?
Fact #1: An estimated 1,800 gallons of water go into a single pound of beef. With that much water you could take 105 eight-minute showers a day!
Fact #2: Food is the cause of 30% of all carbon emissions.
Fact #3: Beef produces the most greenhouse gas emissions, which include methane. A global average of 110lb (50kg) of greenhouse gases is released per 3.5oz of protein.
Fact #4: Beef requires 20 times more land and emits 20 times more GHG emissions per gram of edible protein than common plant proteins, such as beans.
Fact #5: Raising animals for food takes up half of all water used in the U.S.
Fact #6: Animal agriculture takes up land and is a leading cause of deforestation. In 2018, 30 million acres of tropical rainforest were lost. Which is equivalent of 43 football fields a minute!
Fact #7: Plant-based meat uses 72%–99% less water than conventional meat (l-water/kg-meat).
Fact #8: Methane, a greenhouse gas, has over 25 times the impact on our planet as carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the largest contributor of methane in the US is livestock and their waste.
Fact #9: Plant-based meat requires no antibiotics at all. It also greatly reduces the risk of antifungal resistance, which can arise from the use of fungicides on crops, because plant-based meat requires much less crop production than conventional meat.
Fact #10: Producing animal-based foods generates more greenhouse gas emissions than plant-based foods, which is why shifting toward a more plant-based or plant-forward diet is recognized as a solution for curbing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change.
Fact #11: 1 gallon of cow’s milk requires 1950 gallons of water.
Fact #12: One recent study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization concluded that, on average, it takes about three pounds of grain to raise one pound of meat.
Fact #13: Livestock contributes nearly 2/3 of agriculture’s greenhouse & 78% of its methane emissions.
Fact #14: It takes more than 11 times as much fossil fuel to make one calorie from animal protein as it does to make one calorie from plant protein.

04/14/2023

A tree must live for at least 10-20 years to have a meaningful effect on the environment
Forests are home to an estimated 80% of the world’s terrestrial species
Throughout 2015-2020, 10 million hectares of trees were removed from forests around the world in cities and towns which could potentially reduce the surface temperature of the area by 2.2 °C
Plants found in forests release phytoncides, antimicrobial compounds. Studies have found that exposure to phytoncides can reduce stress, boost the immune system, and lower blood pressure as well as heart rate.
2,000 years ago, 80% of Western Europe was covered by forests. Today, only 34% is covered by forests.