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Buying Clothing- how can we reduce our impact?

November 15, 2019 by Jennifer Hammond

On Friday, November 15, Sustainable Fairfax hosted a film and speaker event featuring THE TRUE COST, a film that addresses the environmental and human impacts of fast fashion and the choices we make when buying clothes.

The film unveiled the struggles of the sweatshop workers in countries like Bangladesh, and the brutal working conditions, sometimes ending in injury and death. Most often, profits are the single-focus of the corporations, while the well-being of the workers and the health of the environment is simply not factored in. We live in a throw-away culture, where clothes are cheap and disposable, creating an unsustainable demand for the workers living on dollars per day.

Heather Podoll of Fibershed speaks at the Sustainable Fairfax screening of “The True Cost”

After the film, Heather Podoll of Fibershed spoke about the importance of being mindful when making purchasing decisions, and the benefits of supporting locally-made clothing with natural fibers that can be composted when worn out. Here a few of my takeaways from the evening:

  • Quality over Quantity. When buying new clothes, it is better to purchase high quality items made of natural fibers that will last longer. You may not end up spending more money if you manage with less items.
  • Buy locally made when possible. Buy clothing made from locally grown fibers and support the regional textile economy. Learn more at Fibershed. (Check out their free Symposium Marketplace this Saturday, November 16, at the Dance Palace in Point Reyes, 9am-5pm. You will find plant-based goods and raw materials for textile creation).
  • Buy organic. Support organic clothing producers. Pesticides are destroying soil and harming farm workers. And, non-organic cotton can expose your skin to pesticides, causing potential health concerns.
  • Shop at consignment stores. We have several wonderful stores in Fairfax!
  • Polyester and other synthetic materials should be avoided. They shed microplastics and are a significant source of plastic pollution in our oceans. Clothing from plastic bottles is not an eco-friendly option for this reason. If you already have synthetics in your wardrobe, try not to wash them often. There are products you can buy that remove some of these microfibers from the laundry water (see Cora Microfiber Laundry Ball).  Another consideration: synthetic clothing contain toxic chemicals which may be absorbed through the skin and cause health issues.
  • Host Clothing Swaps! Sustainable Fairfax is currently hosting a serve-yourself scarf & hat exchange at the outdoor tables next to Indie Alley at 69 Bolinas Road, Fairfax. Drop off your gently used scarves and hats, and take some home to refresh your accessories for fall and winter!

Filed Under: slider, Sustainable Film Series, Zero Waste Tagged With: Slide, slider, sustainable clothing, zero waste

Take the No-Waste November Challenge!

October 31, 2019 by Sustainable Fairfax

STEP ONE: SELECT YOUR PERSONAL GOAL

You don’t need to tell us what goal you set. That is up to you!

OPTION 1:  Limit your garbage to ONE PAPER BAG for the month of November.

OPTION 2:  Limit your garbage to ONE MASON JAR for the month of November.

OPTION 3: Do not create any garbage. This, of course, is for the advanced zero waste practitioners!

STEP TWO:  Submit the form below to request your No-Waste November “How-To-Do-It” Guide. Join the community conversation so we can figure it out together!

STEP THREE: SHARE YOUR SUCCESSES and WIN!

There are two ways you can enter a drawing for a $100 Good Earth Certificate and other prizes:

1. Post a picture of your waste-free action on social media:

    • Include hashtag: #NoWasteNovember
    • AND tag Sustainable Fairfax:

  Instagram: @SustainableFairfax
Facebook: @SustainableFairfaxCA
Twitter: @SustainFX

OR

2. Share your tip/solution for minimizing waste in an email to info@sustainablefairfax.org

We have many events planned this month to help you on your journey- to be announced soon!

Filed Under: No Waste November, slider, Zero Waste Tagged With: nowastenovember, recycling, Slide, zero waste

Board Blog: Vice President, Renee Goddard

April 10, 2018 by Sustainable Fairfax

By Renee Goddard, Vice President, Sustainable Fairfax

It was July 2006. I collapsed in my chair at the Embarcadero Center Theater, mind and body overwhelmed, and completely terrified. Where normally the credits would roll at the end of a film, instead a list of “Never fear, What To Do’s” filled the screen.

The film was Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. The list was the first of many such lists that I would see and put on the shelf. I felt the tension ease as I read, slowly relaxing enough to begin to absorb what the words were directing me to do.

The movie subsequently inspired volumes of lists, books, and calendars of daily actions, which people initially consumed voraciously. These urgent calls to action, prescribing behavior changes critical to combating Global Warming were published and illustrated with breathtaking photographs of the wonders of nature and heartbreaking photographs of our planet in peril.

My mind raced on that July night as we drove home from San Francisco. What needed to be done seemed so tangible and so achievable. I expected to see the townsfolk of Fairfax out in the street, ready to make the changes the list instructed us to make in order to sustain our ability to live on this earth.

But where was the Town Crier in the Parkade calling us to take action? After seeing Al Gore’s crystal clear depiction of climate science and gripping teaching of the facts underlying human contribution to the massive acceleration of the planet’s warming, it seemed impossible that we were not responding as if our lives depended on it.

As a mother of a 5 and 8 year old I saw no other choice but to mobilize. Certainly other parents of young children would be equally desperate to join together.

I put a homemade banner in the window of The Fairfax Scoop announcing a call to action and community gathering at the Tree Park at the bottom of Cascade Drive.

I called the meeting at dinner time the next day knowing that the time was most likely inconvenient for young families. We would gauge people’s sense of urgency by whether they showed up, choosing to prioritize human existence over serving dinner on time.

50 + adults answered the call and brought their children.

People participated enthusiastically, expressing a collective relief to find others who were ready to combine their individual efforts and knowledge into a larger local movement of people to make a bigger impact impact.

We discovered that we all had lists tacked to our walls, but the number of things that we were told we “SHOULD” have been doing was weighing us down and draining our energy to act.

Our collective was a renewable source of energy and we all tapped in. We became known as The Inconvenient Group, and we gathered weekly.

We made new lists and distilled the larger actions into bite sized pieces. We committed to making homemade yogurt in order to avoid purchasing plastic containers. We learned basic biking skills to encourage biking as a viable means of transportation. We held a screening of “Synthetic Seas”, a film about the Pacific Gyre garbage patch, and learned how plastics are suffocating our oceans. We supported one another’s desire to make lifestyle changes that would decrease our individual generation of greenhouse gas emissions and slow the rate at which our planet is warming. We were discovering distressing truths but were motivated to work for solutions.

Organizations began to seek us out. A group of energetic action- oriented people is a gold mine for a non-profit organization.

I received a call from Pam Hartwell, who was at the time the Executive Director of Sustainable Fairfax. She came and spoke to our group and described the community actions already in progress, as well as the history of the organization whose founder was a key player in the inception of Marin County’s Community Choice Aggregate (Marin Clean Energy). She made very clear the efficacy of combining resources.

With a little courting and a lot of coaxing we joined Sustainable Fairfax.

It has been 12 years since An Inconvenient Truth took the world by storm. Over the course of these 12 years, Earth’s atmosphere has exceeded over 400 parts per million of CO2 warming gases in the atmosphere and the climate is increasingly chaotic, threatening humanity’s ability to survive on our planetary home.  The threat is more pressing than ever, and our message all the more urgent.

Sustainable Fairfax has been and continues to be the Town Crier, the spring board for community action, the hub, the home and the hope.

Please join us!

Filed Under: Board Blog, Climate Justice, slider Tagged With: climate change, Sustainable Fairfax

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  • Fairfax Streets for People- Clothing Swap!
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