ReDress Earth

REthinking how we dress, Cycling textiles sustainably

Author: Wendy J Freeman

  • #TakeItBack – the story of “guerilla EPR”

    #TakeItBack – the story of “guerilla EPR”

    Wendy Ward has a new story for worn-out and un-useable waste textiles, that we return them carefully with a letter to the manufacturer, suggesting THEY think about the lack of an end-of-life process.

    Once upon a time, an old polycotton sheet reached its end of life. Not absorbent enough to become a rag, unwanted at thrift shops where there’s no demand, no organisation could reuse the materials, it might be repaired a while but most people don’t know how, and shoved in a bin in the UK would mean either incineration or a long journey to be dumped in the Global South.

    Used clothes discarded in the Atacama desert, Chile. Photograph: The Guardian- Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images

    Currently, environmental action charity Wrap claim about 650K tonnes of used textiles are processed out of recycling in the UK, of which 421K tonnes are exported as “waste” colonialism for processing in the global South. While clothing can often be recycled, there is no infrastructure to recycle or repurpose worn bedding and other post-consumer mixed fibre home textile waste.

    Enter Wendy Ward, designer, maker, author, and academic, who is holding the creators of the problem accountable. She sent her old sheet back to the retailer with a kindly worded letter asking them to #TakeitBack, and to inform her of what they are doing to address the problem of old unwanted textiles they had produced.

    Wendy Ward from a Guardian Newspaper Article – Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

    Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies could force manufacturers to take responsibility for the lifecycle of their products, from better design to end-of-use recycling, with fees to support recycling infrastructure, sorting and cleaner incineration. Policies have been implemented in Europe, and could be in the UK. Pressuring responsible organisations to support suitable policy and pay into recycling infrastructure is key, as the government has not yet acted.

    The Sheet that went Back – guerilla EPR. Photo : Instagram @thatWendyWard

    Sainbury’s received their 10 year old mixed-source polycotton sheet back from Wendy, with a letter advising them that despite her academic research, she could find no sustainable options like repair, composting, or repurposing, only normal recycling which could see it shipped overseas to be dumped or incinerated.

    Her post about her letter went viral, hopefully Sainsbury’s will look into it and take some actions. Wendy reports so far, that she received only a quick customer service response which does not answer the problem.

    She recommends more of us get involved, and pressurise these companies to do better.

    Take Action

    If you would like to participate in the action, and have a mixed-fibre item at end of life, tell them to #TakeItBack.

    Click here to access Wendy Ward's Linktr.ee, the first options is a #TakeItBack template to write to your manufacturer
    Click for template!!!

    Launder the items, pack them carefully, and add a polite explanatory letter explaining the recycling issue. Ask what you are supposed to now do with the item, making the problem of unrecyclable consumer textiles visible to those accountable and responsible for its production. Send it recorded mail to manufacturers or retailer.

    More details and a template letter here, for people wanting to do the same, many of her Instagram followers are taking this same action. Let Wendy know if you hear anything helpful back!

    Resources:

    Detailed references for Wendy Ward https://linktr.ee/thatwendyward

    Instagram logo

    Wendy Ward on Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/thatwendyward

    @redesign_collective  in Instagram coined the helpful term “guerilla EPR” 🙌

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/29/you-sold-it-now-recycle-it-the-protesters-mailing-worn-out-clothes-to-the-shops-they-bought-them-from

    More about Wendy Ward’s research here: https://concernedresearchers.org/blog/18-wendy-ward-mom-apr-2025-xdmxm-caghl-xdxh2

    We need Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy for textiles (2024) Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Available at: https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/epr-policy-for-textiles (Accessed: 1 June 2025).

    Implementation of EPR in Europe : Saint, M. (2025) ‘Fashion brands face growing EU pressure to cut textiles waste’, Financial Times, 22 May. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/02d6d242-5a1a-4628-a861-a5e880b52575 (Accessed: 1 June 2025).

  • The story of Never Enough

    The story of Never Enough

    Zhong Lin's January shoot for Vogue Taiwan %22Limitless Consumption%22 = model in oily pile of used clothing
    Vogue cover shoot – Taiwan, January 2025. Photograph : Zhong Lin, Model: Zoe Fang

    “Overconsumption is the most deadly ecological killer in contemporary times, and it is closely related to any problem of environmental pollution… let us calm down and present an ecological fable with the cover image story.”

    VOGUE 1月號封面，一首過度消費的輓歌

    過度消費是當代最致命的生態殺手，它與環境污染的任何一個問題都息息相關。在一年的初始，讓我們靜下心來，用封面影像故事呈現一個生態寓言。

    By Nicole Lee和Chen Yu2025年1月2日

    Vogue Taiwan ran a beautiful and powerful photo-shoot in their January 2025 edition  with a poetic “elegy to overconsumption” in the text. All quotes in Italics are from the above article, just Google translated to english from traditional Chinese.

    Bible of fashion Vogue were telling a different story in January to their usual promotion of consumption of clothing. With lyrical text, “an Ode” to our over-consumption and excess waste was illustrated by a solitary model overladen with clothes and oil, in a devastated landscape.

    Fashion as Art drives a global business model encouraging the excesses and technologies of our Age. There is no textile, structure, or embellishment too wild, too beautiful, for a designer to suggest.

    Humans all require a cover, from those in tropical forests requiring only the most simple covering for modesty and protection from thorns, to NASA astronauts and Olympic athletes requiring incredibly technical garments to work.

    Zoe Fang is wearing a grey wrinkled jacket, ACNE STUDIOS a dark brown lapel jacket, PRADA black trousers, black thick-soled mid-length boots, BALENCIAGA a rendered distressed top, dark blue denim sleeves, brown denim sleeves all by MARRKNULL
    Zoe Fang in Acne Studios, Prada, Balenciaga & Marrknull. Photograph : Zhong Lin for Vogue Taiwan 2025

    “In the haze-filled scene, the girl struggled to move forward with her small home on her back. The excessive amount of clothes mixed with the mud on her body almost crushed her body. Turning her head, too many images and photos became a visual obstacle, making it impossible to distinguish between reality and illusion.”

    Vogue cover shoot – Taiwan, January 2025. Photograph : Zhong Lin, Model: Zoe Fang

    Increasing use is made of petroleum-based plastics to manufacture cheap textiles – globally, about 60% of fabric used for clothing is synthetic, not biodegradable like natural fibres. Our mass consumption of these clothes creates prodigious textile and apparel (T&A) waste, an enormous burden on the Planet.

    “When people’s desires are carefully packaged and the misplaced fantasies created by the connection between objects and happiness are deeply bound, overconsumption becomes a civilization disease,
    and also like a sleeping elegy, allowing us to finally bid farewell to our beloved environment.“

    Vogue Taiwan photograph of young asian woman carrying unwieldy black object on her back with the tag %22Never Enough%22
    Carrying our homes on our back in the future – Photograph : Zhong Lin in Balenciaga for Vogue Taiwan 2025

    Where is our obsession with Fashion taking us all?

    Overconsumption itself, and its impact on the earth, has caused environmental degradation, resource depletion, damage to ecosystems, and accelerated climate change. In a world where living land is limited due to rising sea levels, we become seasonal nomads, constantly migrating due to unpredictable weather.

    The plants and animals we once relied on for survival have disappeared, and when the soil cannot support life, we have to cultivate green plants on our bodies. We begin to carry our homes on our backs like snails.
    Vogue Taiwan Editor-in-Chief Sun Yi

    The need for something new and exciting to wear, for an event, an interview, or just to feel good about ourselves, is a global obsession linked to Social Media, and residue from that fast fashion is literally burying us in polyesters.

    Ports in Ghana, Burkina Faso or Côte d’Ivoire in Africa, and Chile, South America, are dumping grounds for Europe’s unwanted recycled and donated clothes. This growing waste stream fills informal markets like Kantamanto, Accra, where 15 million imported garments arrive by ship per week. While sorting and selling, and upcycling, creates employment for designers, makers, sellers, carriers and market staff, about 40 percent of the imports are unusable and dumped to landfill at the port.

    Small model in bright red winged cape and dress with stillt like shoes, posing over dangerous looking small fast running stony stream
    Model Zoe Fang spinning wings cape /dress by LÙCHEN. Photograph : Zhong Lin for Vogue Taiwan 2025

    “Writer Anna Lappe once said: “Every time you consume, you are voting for your ideal world.” When we click the purchase button to satisfy our own selfish desires, overconsumption is no longer a personal choice, but a collective syndrome of the entire era. We consume not only goods, but also resources, time, and our understanding of our true needs.“

    Kantamanto market burned almost to the ground at Christmas. The dystopian future of burned landscapes was suggested by the Vogue Photographer Zhong Lin.

    When the slow cost of fast fashion is ignored by us, when the wardrobe is full but we still feel we have no choice, when the house is filled with clothes but our hearts still feel empty, the torrent of material things becomes a wasteland of the soul. The only thing that can truly nourish the soul is conscious choices.

    Vogue cover shoot – Taiwan, January 2025. Photograph : Zhong Lin, Model: Zoe Fang

    Take Action Now : #NoNewClothes

    Imagine a fashion future where the planet is respected and garment workers are paid living wages. Join the #NoNewClothes challenge, commit to not buying any new clothes for at least 90 days, only second hand – or nothing at all.

    #NoNewClothes Challenge is 90 days to help address overconsumption and change the fashion industry.

    In 1972, a group of thinkers wrote a book called The Limits to Growth, which simulated the future scenarios that humanity might face, but the vision was not pretty. They predicted that the world was on a trajectory that exceeded the Earth's carrying capacity, and that such a trajectory came from overconsumption. If we continue to act in the current way - overconsumption of resources - it will lead to global environmental collapse by the end of the 21st century. But 50 years later, we are still in the quagmire, and even because of the epidemic and the rapid development of online shopping, overconsumption is more serious than scholars imagined half a century ago.
    Model: Zoe Fang Vogue cover shoot Photograph : Zhong Lin for Vogue Taiwan 2025

    References

    Ahiable, K. and Triki, C. (2021) Tackling Ghana’s Textile-Waste Challenge, Tony Blair institute for Global Change. Available at: https://institute.global/insights/climate-and-energy/tackling-ghanas-textile-waste-challenge (Accessed: 1 June 2025).

    Lee N. (2025) VOGUE 1月號封面，一首過度消費的輓歌, Vogue Taiwan. Available at: https://www.vogue.com.tw/article/2025-january-cover (Accessed: 1 June 2025).

    Credits for above original January 2205 Cover article in Vogue
    • APAC Editorial Director: Leslie Sun
    • Photographer: Zhong Lin
    • Model: Zoe Fang
    • Stylist and Managing Fashion Editor: Chen Yu
    • Features Director and Text: Nicole Lee
    • Makeup: Sting Hsieh
    • Hair: Miley Shen
    • Gaffer: Yuanling Wang
    • Set Design: Setsation Studio
    • Producer: Nelly Yang
    • Zoe Fang身著黑色仿舊高跟襪靴 BALENCIAGA
  • Tatreez – the Embroiderer’s story

    Tatreez – the Embroiderer’s story

    Traditional Wedding outfit. Wafaa Abu Gulmee, Palestine, 2020, shared on Unesco.org

    A young girl sits on the stone steps of her home, watching her mother, and other female family members, create the traditional Palestinian handcraft of “tatreez” (hand embroidery). They sit with balls of bright embroidery thread in baskets, stitching a design on local cotton or linen using cross stitch techniques, or remaking a heritage garment, painstakingly small stitches in bright colours, across the bodices, in panels for sleeves and on the hems of their skirts. The visible record of their love for their land and storytelling of their shared history, appears in the motifs, olive trees, buildings and local fauna and flora.

    Jamileh and Nazmieh Salim are two of six sisters, embroider for Inaash in Mar Elias refugee camp in Lebanon

    The traditional Palestinian “thobe “(long loose fitting dress) was worn traditionally in villages near Jerusalem and in Ramallah, and Bethlehem before the colonisation and now destruction of Palestine. Historically, the combination of motifs, colours, and style of embroidery (tatreez) on a woman’s thobe linked to a very specific village and region, a personal visual ethnography now lost with displacement.

    Capture from Unesco video celebrating Palestinian Tatreez

    Incorporating traditional motifs of Palestinian food, flora, architecture and daily life in colours that indicate both a regional identity and marital status, Tatreez has been formally recognised by Unesco on their Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

    After the 1948 Nakba many Palestinian families were uprooted, displacing the connection traditional designs made between women’s history and their home. After the Palestinian flag was banned, the colours were embroidered onto clothing. Later, Palestinian struggle against the Occupation appeared through colours and other symbolism like doves, women literally wearing resistance and activism.

    Palestinian heritage garment, patched, with embroidery, presentation at Courtauld Galleries by Rachel Dedman

    West Bank embroiderers of tatreez are still hand-stitching fine home decor items, panels for clothing, and full thobes, for celebration or wedding garments, to market on sites like Etsy and Pinterest.

    Bethlehem, a center for design and pilgrimage since ancient times, is famous for rich and distinctive use of couch stitching, “tahriri” or “taqsireh”, with heavier cord secured with gold or silver thread in intricate patterns highly valued across Palestine, and now by discerning buyers online.

    Exquisite embroidered thobe, possibly a Palestinian wedding dress, for rent on Etsy

    Nol Collective supports Palestinians creating modern Tatreez designs, to reach the global marketplace, including a local upcyling project “souk samara” working with vintage panels. The Collective helped preserve the traditional Majdalawi handweaving technique, traditional to the now demolished town of al Majdal in Gaza. Weavers were helped to safe premises recently, to preserve their craft. Funds were raised from sales of Tatreez.

    Denim jacket with up-cycled tatreez from vintage thobe – souk samara, “local Palestinian brand from Nablus, giving fraying vintage thobs a second life”.

    Action :

    Please try to confirm that original tatreez work bought online supports a Palestinian family, as you may be buying a much loved family heirloom or an item representing hours of Palestinian refugee labour. Many embroiderers now depend on these traditional skills to support their families in very difficult circumstances, benefits must go back to them.

    Additional References:

    https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/the-art-of-embroidery-in-palestine-practices-skills-knowledge-and-rituals-01722

    https://www.unesco.org/en/fieldoffice/ramallah/palestinian-embroidery

    Book by Rachel Dedman “Stitching the Intifada: Embroidery and Resistance in Palestine” https://www.commonthreadspress.co.uk/products/stitching-the-intifada-embroidery-and-resistance-in-palestine

    Talk by Rachel Dedman on the links between Embroidery and Resistance in Palestine : https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/material-power-embroidery-dress-and-resistance-in-palestine/

    FANN, B.A. (2023) The Art of Tatreez – Palestinian Embroidery, Bayt Al Fann. Available at: https://www.baytalfann.com/post/the-art-of-tatreez-palestinian-embroidery (Accessed: 1 June 2025).

    Possible sources of Tatreez for purchasing, please report back if you know other reliable sources or any issues with these.

    • https://www.hadeel.org/suppliers/sulafa-unwra-embroidery-project/
    • https://www.shoppalestine.org/pages/our-story
    • https://www.instagram.com/palestinian_tatreez/
    • https://www.instagram.com/samarasouk/


  • The complex story of textile recycling

    The complex story of textile recycling

    6000kg of clothing goes to landfill in australia every 10 minutes, according to the brilliant @brenna_quinlan
    Clothing waste

    That shiny new top for a special night out, or fresh bright cushion cover in the hotel room, or no-iron sheets in the guest room, all have one thing in common – made with polyester, they get old, and ugly, and wear out. And existing recycling has limited options for this – despite being told to put old things in the correct recycling bin, it cannot all be recycled sustainably.

    Once too worn out for its original purpose, or to be reused, repaired, refurbished, or repurposed, then basic materials should be recovered from the item. With polyesters, chemical recycling is an option (dependent on the mixture of fibres involved). The process is technically complex, and a lot of waste material escapes.

    Image courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup, working to clear the Pacific Garbage Patch

    PET (polyethylene terephthalate, one kind of polyester, used for bottles, trays, and fabric) is recycled a lot – about 50% in Europe. About 17% in 2022 of recycled PET material became new bottles, the rest plastic packaging and mixed fibre clothing or was lost during in the recycling process.

    Eunomia and Zero Waste Europe Report on Recycling of PET (Feb 2022)

    So up to 63% of PET is lost each cycle as waste, see graph above (recycled PET packaging/trays and mixed fibre polyester textiles, are not themselves recycled much). Each cycle, the 17% recycled material is reduced. There is value in recycling PET, but the current process requires virgin PET material inputs each cycle.

    Recycling of mixed fibres, like poly-cottons, is more difficult. Chemical processing to separate mixed fibres have proven successful in small batches, with pre-consumer waste like manufacturer deadstock. Chemical depolymerization requires heat, washing, and careful sorting, often making the process less “sustainable” than producing virgin cotton or even polyester.

    Scaling the process is complicated. To make up the quantity, post-consumer textiles are sourced from mixed recycling collections. These will include metallic dyes, chemical coatings like fireproofing, hidden fasteners, and unlabelled fibre content. Even minor contaminations limits scaling the chemical processing (Marusic (2024), Gusein (2025)).

    Reju – polyester made from textiles, for textiles.

    Alternatively, a mechanical reprocessing can turn some pre-consumer waste fabric, deadstock, into fibre ready for reweaving, at close to 100% re-use, the machine requires clean source material. Post-consumer waste is problematic, due to contamination.

    To move towards full circularity in textile recycling, these issues of scale must be addressed. Producing single fibre textiles, like 100% cotton, historically, made recycling easier – the complex make-up of many modern textiles makes recycling equally complex, and often outside consumer capability.

    The EU Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy is one solution being trialled requiring textiles to be clearly “labelled” (even at a fibre level) for source and content, enabling full recovery and recycling of materials possible. The policy requires a fee per kilogram of textile manufactured, revenue enabling better recycling systems to internalize end-of-life recovery/recycling costs inside the industry. Systemiq (Hermann et al 2025) calculate that Europe could be recycling ten times more polyester by 2030.

    PET bottles recycled into pellets, then spun into yarns, becoming wearable textiles (Image: Eurofins website)
    PET bottles recycled into pellets, then spun into yarns, becoming wearable textiles (Image: Eurofins website)

    While we wait for EPR policy enabling detailed labelling for recycling, improved chemical detection of fibres in textiles enables better separation during recycling, but are costly and not available to consumers. This lack of information about our clothing structure means we all do a lot of “wishcycling” – putting items in the wrong recycling bins. But keeping textiles out the main waste stream is critical, as piles of unrecyclable textiles grow, consumer demand for improved processes grows too.

    Action:

    • Use less plastic, generally.
    • Buy less non-recyclable materials (like mixed fibre clothing, polystyrene, and bright coloured plastic homeware) planning to “wishcycle” it away (thanks Sam). It never goes away, it either gets incinerated, or goes to landfill.
    • Keep recycling carefully! Your clean uncontaminated recyclables in the specified containers at official collection points, even if currently inadequate, can still be useful to organisations developing circular material use systems and get processed, in landfill or incinerated they are lost forever.
    • In the UK, check for specific recycling options and locations here: https://www.recyclenow.com/recycling-locator
      – In Portugal, here: https://www.ondereciclar.pt/

    References

    ANDRITZ (2025) Sustainable fashion: ANDRITZ tearing line starts up at Pacific Jeans, Bangladesh, Andritz AG Newsroom. Available at: https://www.andritz.com/newsroom-en/nonwoven-and-textile/2025-05-14-pacific-jeans-group (Accessed: 29 May 2025).

    Grant, A. et al. (2022) ‘How circular is PET?’, Zero Waste Europe, 16 February. Available at: https://zerowasteeurope.eu/library/how-circular-is-pet/ (Accessed: 29 May 2025).

    Gusein, S. (2025) Does the Circular Story Still Hold Up When You Do the Math? Shivam Gusain, Substack. Available at: https://substack.com/home/post/p-163767835 (Accessed: 29 May 2025).

    Hermann, S. et al. (2025) ‘The Textile Recycling Breakthrough: Why policy must lead the scale-up of polyester recycling in Europe’, Systemiq. Available at: https://www.systemiq.earth/reports/the-textile-recycling-breakthrough/ (Accessed: 30 May 2025).

    Marusic, K. (2024) Q&A: Director of sustainability at Eastman Chemical Company talks chemical recycling – The Daily Climate, Daily Climate. Available at: https://www.dailyclimate.org/industrial-chemical-recycling-2667644755/particle-1 (Accessed: 29 May 2025).


    Plastics and the circular economy (2019) Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Available at: https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/plastics-and-the-circular-economy-deep-dive (Accessed: 29 May 2025).

    Strategy for textiles – European Commission (2022) Official European Commission – TCLF (Textiles, clothing, leather and footwear) industries. Available at: https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/textiles-ecosystem/strategy-textiles_en (Accessed: 29 May 2025).

    ‘The climate impact of chemical recycling technologies’ (2020) Quantis, 30 November. Available at: https://quantis.com/reports/the-climate-impact-of-chemical-recycling-technologies/ (Accessed: 29 May 2025).

    WRAP – Household Waste Prevention Hub: Re-use – Clothing (2015) WRAP – The Waste and Resources Action Programme. Available at: https://www.wrap.ngo/resources/guide/textiles/clothing (Accessed: 2 June 2025).