How can you lessen the climate impact of your clothes? Our writers spend a month selling, tailoring and mending to find out
‘I spot-clean for a month and look no more dishevelled than usual’
I feel I should begin by airing my dirty laundry: I’m a middle-aged mother of small children who doesn’t do any of the laundry in our home. I know, I’m like the level of plastic particles in our waters: unprecedented. But it’s my sartorially fastidious partner, Claire, who does the laundry while my duties include walking the dog, cooking, cleaning, shopping, birthing babies, wiping bums … all of which casts a spectrum of stains across my wardrobe. So when I’m challenged to wash my clothes less – which is one of the small ways we can individually reduce the aforementioned microplastics entering the ocean – the first thing that happens is a row with my partner over the sensitive question of whether I can claim to “wash less” considering the small matter of not actually doing any washing at all.
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