This article may contain affiliate / compensated links. For full information, please see the disclaimer here.
Today’s challenge has two meanings. First off, clothes are not meant to be single use. Secondly, many clothes can be worn multiple times before washing. An odd result of fast fashion is that many people are buying clothes and wearing them just once. Then they sit in the closet or are discarded. That is crazy to me and indicates a problem in our system from development to pricing. There also is a trend for everything to be ultra clean, but historically people wore only one outfit for several days before handwashing. I think both of these new trends need to go.
Today’s challenge: Wash your clothes less often and be sure to wear them again (and again and again).
- Wear clothes more than once: Let’s normalize this practice. I can’t remember where I read this, but there was a study in which participants wore the same outfit two days in a row, and not one single person that saw the re-wearing offender the next day noticed. People are too caught up in their own lives. Even Duchess Kate has publicly worn the same outfit more than once to make a point that it is reasonable to do so.
- Wash your clothes less often: I’m not talking about your underwear or your stinky gym clothes. These deserve a wash after each wear. However, sweaters, jeans, pajamas, and dresses are definitely clean enough to go through several wears before washing. You will help preserve the clothes this way with less breakdown of the material. And guess what? Less washing means both less microplastics in the water and less loads of laundry for you!!
→ Back to the Plastic Challenge Homepage
