In Term 1, Year 8 Textiles students considered all the resources that go into making textile items and the environmental impacts of these. They learnt the sobering fact that 2700 litres of water go into making one cotton T-shirt and some people only wear a T-shirt twice before discarding it. What a waste.
Students also watched part of an episode from ABC TV show War On Waste. They discovered that The Smith Family charity spends one million dollars a year getting rid of poor-quality donated clothing items. These facts helped all of our students to consider how much money they spend on clothing and how often they purchase new clothing.
Below is a list of tips from our students about how we can all minimise textile waste:
Learn to sew, exchange or restyle your old clothes, support local makers, build a capsule wardrobe.
— Jesse Prescott (Year 8 White)
Buy good quality clothes (so they will last longer), prioritise natural fibres, rent out your unused clothing, buy secondhand clothing and shoes.
— Katherine Mansley (Year 8 White)
Here is a report from Textiles students Neve O’Brien and Ben Hendriks (both Year 8 White):
Starting Textiles this year has been so much fun and really important towards learning more about the environmental impacts we all have on the Earth. Last term we learnt all about what happens to all of the clothes or textiles that we throw out every single day. Did you know that the clothing industry, behind big oil producers, is the second largest polluting industry? We also made a luggage tag using the knowledge of what happens to the waste to help make our tag sustainable. We did this by learning which stitches to use and trying not to leave any extra waste that would have to be thrown out, alongside the six tons of textiles that are thrown out by Australian’s every 10 minutes. We also used leftover felt. We got to learn about e-textiles which is the incorporation of technology into textiles. We did this by adding a small light to our tag. This was so much fun and we learnt great skills for the future.
