The Problem of Production
August 2, 2018 9:10 AM Subscribe
Burberry has destroyed more than £28m of its fashion and cosmetic products over the past year. How does the company justify it? (The Guardian) Clothing companies are trashing unsold merchandise instead of donating it. 26 billion pounds of clothing ends up in US landfills each year. (The Outline) Multiple studies have shown synthetic fibers to make up the lion’s share of microplastics found in oceans, rivers and lakes, and clothes made from synthetics (polyester, nylon, and so on) are widely implicated as the source of that pollution. Seabirds are pooping out plastic. (Hakai)
Donation sucks too, though: dumping zero cost clothing (especially in Africa) heavily distorts economies.
Probably best to place a disposal tax on every article of clothing made? I believe there is a precedent for this with certain electronics.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:23 AM on August 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
Probably best to place a disposal tax on every article of clothing made? I believe there is a precedent for this with certain electronics.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:23 AM on August 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
Capitalism is a philosophy of waste
posted by dng at 9:24 AM on August 2, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by dng at 9:24 AM on August 2, 2018 [12 favorites]
But, but, I thought capitalism was the most efficient economic system we could possibly have!
Seriously though. If clothing manufacturers can discard 26 billion pounds of clothing a year, then two things are clear: their labor costs are insanely, disgustingly and immorally low, and they are very confused about the size of the market demand.
Maybe Burberry should not exist.
posted by dis_integration at 9:26 AM on August 2, 2018 [34 favorites]
Seriously though. If clothing manufacturers can discard 26 billion pounds of clothing a year, then two things are clear: their labor costs are insanely, disgustingly and immorally low, and they are very confused about the size of the market demand.
Maybe Burberry should not exist.
posted by dis_integration at 9:26 AM on August 2, 2018 [34 favorites]
Even Walmart does this, or used to. When my mom worked at Walmart in the '80s they had an industrial shredder out back of the store they called "Igor" that unwanted stock went into. Although not just clothes, everything.
posted by lagomorphius at 9:29 AM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by lagomorphius at 9:29 AM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
planned economies are superior to market economies
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change my mind
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:30 AM on August 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
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change my mind
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:30 AM on August 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
If you want to tackle plastics in the ocean and you're not going after plastics in fishing gear or abandoned fishing gear you're not doing it right.
Yea it's wasteful to destroy unused bags, but landfills are not the source of plastic micro particles and other trash in the ocean, fishing gear is. Tackle that you'll start to make a decent dent.
posted by jmauro at 9:36 AM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yea it's wasteful to destroy unused bags, but landfills are not the source of plastic micro particles and other trash in the ocean, fishing gear is. Tackle that you'll start to make a decent dent.
posted by jmauro at 9:36 AM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
My wife has only bought brand new underwear and socks since 2006. Everything else has been hand made from fabric she bought second hand or bought used. She absolutely on principle refuses to buy any clothing (or fabric) brand new.
Fighting this ecological disaster (fast fashion is literally choking the earth to death) forms the basis her life’s professional activist work.
posted by nikaspark at 9:37 AM on August 2, 2018 [11 favorites]
Fighting this ecological disaster (fast fashion is literally choking the earth to death) forms the basis her life’s professional activist work.
posted by nikaspark at 9:37 AM on August 2, 2018 [11 favorites]
She absolutely on principle refuses to buy any clothing (or fabric) brand new.
If I didn't have a full-time office job, I'd consider making a lot of my clothes, since it's already hard to find new things in my size. It's almost impossible to find used things in my size. (This means I'll never be tempted to buy "high fashion" clothing - most of it isn't made in 2X, and when it is, it's designed for people a foot taller than me.)
If I had access to slashed-and-trashed expensive-brand clothing, I'd be tempted to make quilts out of it and donate those, and make sure the brand labels were prominently visible.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:52 AM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
If I didn't have a full-time office job, I'd consider making a lot of my clothes, since it's already hard to find new things in my size. It's almost impossible to find used things in my size. (This means I'll never be tempted to buy "high fashion" clothing - most of it isn't made in 2X, and when it is, it's designed for people a foot taller than me.)
If I had access to slashed-and-trashed expensive-brand clothing, I'd be tempted to make quilts out of it and donate those, and make sure the brand labels were prominently visible.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:52 AM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm starting to make more and more of my own clothing, and kind of running into the problem that nikaspark's wife has solved -- is it any greener to buy new fabric? (I've found one source for overstock fabric, and if anyone knows of any others, I would be immensely grateful! I already re-use sheets, etc., but it would be nice to have a source for other garment fabrics.)
My only other solution to being a giant clotheshorse is to try to buy from places that I can be reasonably sure aren't using effectively slave labor to produce their clothes -- mostly small boutique brands, although Burberry is a good case study that high-end clothing brand certainly does not equal ethical production.
posted by kalimac at 10:00 AM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
My only other solution to being a giant clotheshorse is to try to buy from places that I can be reasonably sure aren't using effectively slave labor to produce their clothes -- mostly small boutique brands, although Burberry is a good case study that high-end clothing brand certainly does not equal ethical production.
posted by kalimac at 10:00 AM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is rather horrific, isn't it?
posted by Chitownfats at 10:00 AM on August 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Chitownfats at 10:00 AM on August 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
With clothing as with food, it's a necessity that we have plenty of that we overproduce and then overprice in hopes that someone will buy it. Then we toss the unpurchased and try again.
With food, the issue is it going bad before it can get to the needy. With clothes, the issue is that there is more created than anyone wants and that it becomes non-biodegradable trash.
Then there's good old real estate, which we have plenty of and which everyone wants, but it can sit unused forever as an investment or a tax haven or a money laundering pit while people get snowed on.
Capitalism always seems to find a way to turn something into nothing.
posted by es_de_bah at 10:07 AM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
With food, the issue is it going bad before it can get to the needy. With clothes, the issue is that there is more created than anyone wants and that it becomes non-biodegradable trash.
Then there's good old real estate, which we have plenty of and which everyone wants, but it can sit unused forever as an investment or a tax haven or a money laundering pit while people get snowed on.
Capitalism always seems to find a way to turn something into nothing.
posted by es_de_bah at 10:07 AM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
I sort of long for the time when clothes were well made, durable, and more expensive. Fashion moved slower. People owned fewer clothes - and buying clothes second hand made sense, since it was still good clothing with life left in it, instead of cheap stuff halfway to disintegrating. But then I know there are kids in my neighbourhood who only have one or two outfits, and I don't want to price the poor out of the market.
At least the microplastic issue is making me feel a bit less guilty about all the water used to make my cotton clothing. I buy almost all my clothing second hand these days, I can sew but I'm really not interested in sewing my own tshirts. I shouldn't have to! The whole point of civilisation is that I shouldn't have to sew my own clothes to avoid destroying the planet, I shouldn't have to grow my own food to avoid chemicals and hormones and dodgy plastics, it's way more efficient to specialise this stuff but capitalism as it exists seems to be poisonous. There is so little I can buy that isn't terrible in some way, and it's exhausting trying to keep track of it all and staring at something in a shop wondering "in what way is this contributing to someone suffering" and trying to figure out whether its better to buy the regular loose bananas, or the organic bananas that for some stupid freaking reason only come in a plastic bag.
Seriously though if we just got rid of the outrageously low wages and super cheap but environmentally disasterous fabric and clothes were more expensive but I didn't have to keep replacing them because they only survive two washes... I would be totally willing to buy my own clothes AND clothes for someone less fortunate for me. Hello taxation, I believe in you, no kid should only own one pair of jeans, sort it out.
posted by stillnocturnal at 10:22 AM on August 2, 2018 [10 favorites]
At least the microplastic issue is making me feel a bit less guilty about all the water used to make my cotton clothing. I buy almost all my clothing second hand these days, I can sew but I'm really not interested in sewing my own tshirts. I shouldn't have to! The whole point of civilisation is that I shouldn't have to sew my own clothes to avoid destroying the planet, I shouldn't have to grow my own food to avoid chemicals and hormones and dodgy plastics, it's way more efficient to specialise this stuff but capitalism as it exists seems to be poisonous. There is so little I can buy that isn't terrible in some way, and it's exhausting trying to keep track of it all and staring at something in a shop wondering "in what way is this contributing to someone suffering" and trying to figure out whether its better to buy the regular loose bananas, or the organic bananas that for some stupid freaking reason only come in a plastic bag.
Seriously though if we just got rid of the outrageously low wages and super cheap but environmentally disasterous fabric and clothes were more expensive but I didn't have to keep replacing them because they only survive two washes... I would be totally willing to buy my own clothes AND clothes for someone less fortunate for me. Hello taxation, I believe in you, no kid should only own one pair of jeans, sort it out.
posted by stillnocturnal at 10:22 AM on August 2, 2018 [10 favorites]
I got a hatred for the kind of capitalism that drives this sort of sociopathic waste. But beyond that, there's so many more options to solve their kinky lust for "aesthetic power." They mention a couple of fabric recyclers in the first article, and I know of one in Seattle, fellow alumna from my MBA program. They're working with brands like Levis.
Beyond that, brands like Patagonia are navigating a very treacherous "post-consumer" terrain and should be celebrated at every opportunity. I wish there were similar brands for officewear.
In general, we also have a failure to price waste disposal correctly. That could be managed via a tax, but corporate capitalism can circumvent most of these policies today without global cooperation.
posted by SoundInhabitant at 10:22 AM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Beyond that, brands like Patagonia are navigating a very treacherous "post-consumer" terrain and should be celebrated at every opportunity. I wish there were similar brands for officewear.
In general, we also have a failure to price waste disposal correctly. That could be managed via a tax, but corporate capitalism can circumvent most of these policies today without global cooperation.
posted by SoundInhabitant at 10:22 AM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Maybe Burberry capitalism should not exist.
.
posted by Fizz at 10:25 AM on August 2, 2018 [8 favorites]
.
posted by Fizz at 10:25 AM on August 2, 2018 [8 favorites]
Though, I'm not sure what alternative we should switch to or consider in place of that.
posted by Fizz at 10:26 AM on August 2, 2018
posted by Fizz at 10:26 AM on August 2, 2018
Though, I'm not sure what alternative we should switch to or consider in place of that.
I guess it's capitalism with strong government regulations and a nice socialism streak. Oh and taxes. So many taxes. Maybe if you get caught dodging taxes you got actually go to jail or get a fine that is a painful percentage of your assets. And aggressively close loopholes.
posted by stillnocturnal at 10:33 AM on August 2, 2018 [11 favorites]
I guess it's capitalism with strong government regulations and a nice socialism streak. Oh and taxes. So many taxes. Maybe if you get caught dodging taxes you got actually go to jail or get a fine that is a painful percentage of your assets. And aggressively close loopholes.
posted by stillnocturnal at 10:33 AM on August 2, 2018 [11 favorites]
I wear my clothes until they're almost ripped to shreds, the shorts I'm wearing at home are almost a skirt. Being broke helps, but I was never a big clothes buyer because they mostly felt either too expensive in price for well, clothes, or too cheap in quality.
Seriously though. If clothing manufacturers can discard 26 billion pounds of clothing a year, then two things are clear: their labor costs are insanely, disgustingly and immorally low, and they are very confused about the size of the market demand.
... and the markup is also insanely, disgustingly and immorally high. Different thing, but for instance, a football shirt costs something like €4 to the manufacturer. A plain shirt (like the ones they sell in bulk to local clubs) costs around 15-30, a licensed kit for a top team, anything between €60 to almost €90 (this excluding shirts exactly like the ones used by the players). Sure, that license also costs them millions every year, but in most cases, almost all proceeds post-tax and sellers fee from a sale go to them.
posted by lmfsilva at 10:37 AM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Seriously though. If clothing manufacturers can discard 26 billion pounds of clothing a year, then two things are clear: their labor costs are insanely, disgustingly and immorally low, and they are very confused about the size of the market demand.
... and the markup is also insanely, disgustingly and immorally high. Different thing, but for instance, a football shirt costs something like €4 to the manufacturer. A plain shirt (like the ones they sell in bulk to local clubs) costs around 15-30, a licensed kit for a top team, anything between €60 to almost €90 (this excluding shirts exactly like the ones used by the players). Sure, that license also costs them millions every year, but in most cases, almost all proceeds post-tax and sellers fee from a sale go to them.
posted by lmfsilva at 10:37 AM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think this post is a subpost of this one.
posted by gwint at 10:46 AM on August 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by gwint at 10:46 AM on August 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
> Though, I'm not sure what alternative we should switch to or consider in place of that.
The abolition of private ownership of the means of production. Production managed by a workers' democracy of whatever flavor you prefer. Prices of goods set through democratically controlled central planning rather than through markets.
The use of whatever means are necessary to dislodge capitalist control over production and institute a managed economy under democratic control.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:17 AM on August 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
The abolition of private ownership of the means of production. Production managed by a workers' democracy of whatever flavor you prefer. Prices of goods set through democratically controlled central planning rather than through markets.
The use of whatever means are necessary to dislodge capitalist control over production and institute a managed economy under democratic control.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:17 AM on August 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
Also the only reasonable chance we have to fight climate change
posted by The Whelk at 11:32 AM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 11:32 AM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
The EU banned lead-based metals in electronic devices because they were contaminating water tables, and electronics were ending up in landfills instead of being recycled. It seems like they could start to tackle this issue using that same regulatory model.
Product that never goes to the retail market as intended means that none of the supply chain transactions are being taxed. In this case, Burberry can reasonably be accused of tax avoidance. They should not be allowed to operate using a model that taxes the consumer transaction if the product never makes it to that market.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:40 AM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Product that never goes to the retail market as intended means that none of the supply chain transactions are being taxed. In this case, Burberry can reasonably be accused of tax avoidance. They should not be allowed to operate using a model that taxes the consumer transaction if the product never makes it to that market.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:40 AM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
dumping zero cost clothing (especially in Africa) heavily distorts economies.
That's kind of part of the problem, isn't it? We have an economic system that fails to incentivize people to do the efficient thing, and in fact has ridiculously perverse outcomes if you try.
The reason the fashion companies don't just sell or give away their unsold merch in the US is the same reason, incidentally: they don't want to cannibalize their own future sales by giving away their unsold stock. So they create a broken-windows situation, just to maintain demand for their products at higher prices in the future.
We literally just make more clothing than is required. That's the bottom line: we should make less stuff, but doing so is incompatible with the economic model that drives the world economy.
This is just like the farmers spraying the piles of peaches with kerosene in The Grapes of Wrath. Can't let people have anything for free — better to destroy it instead.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:42 AM on August 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
That's kind of part of the problem, isn't it? We have an economic system that fails to incentivize people to do the efficient thing, and in fact has ridiculously perverse outcomes if you try.
The reason the fashion companies don't just sell or give away their unsold merch in the US is the same reason, incidentally: they don't want to cannibalize their own future sales by giving away their unsold stock. So they create a broken-windows situation, just to maintain demand for their products at higher prices in the future.
We literally just make more clothing than is required. That's the bottom line: we should make less stuff, but doing so is incompatible with the economic model that drives the world economy.
This is just like the farmers spraying the piles of peaches with kerosene in The Grapes of Wrath. Can't let people have anything for free — better to destroy it instead.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:42 AM on August 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
I sort of long for the time when clothes were well made, durable, and more expensive. Fashion moved slower. People owned fewer clothes - and buying clothes second hand made sense, since it was still good clothing with life left in it, instead of cheap stuff halfway to disintegrating.
I miss those days too, and I am a clotheshorse! I remember when I could make Cheap Chic my fashion bible and buy just about everything except underwear and (usually) shoes secondhand. For me, it was a way to be kind to our environment as well as look good on a budget and the thrill of the hunt.
I still get a lot of my clothes from ThredUp, but dirt cheap crap has replaced sturdy clothing that could be worn and then given away. It's sad, especially because I do want to get some wear out of my shirts, dresses, etc. but their lifespan is practically that of tissue paper.
I for one welcome our 3D printing overlords - if I could 3D print a dress, say, in the color that I want, the style that I want, and that fits me exactly, all the time, trouble and expense I could save! And I'm sure it would do the earth a solid too.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:19 PM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
I miss those days too, and I am a clotheshorse! I remember when I could make Cheap Chic my fashion bible and buy just about everything except underwear and (usually) shoes secondhand. For me, it was a way to be kind to our environment as well as look good on a budget and the thrill of the hunt.
I still get a lot of my clothes from ThredUp, but dirt cheap crap has replaced sturdy clothing that could be worn and then given away. It's sad, especially because I do want to get some wear out of my shirts, dresses, etc. but their lifespan is practically that of tissue paper.
I for one welcome our 3D printing overlords - if I could 3D print a dress, say, in the color that I want, the style that I want, and that fits me exactly, all the time, trouble and expense I could save! And I'm sure it would do the earth a solid too.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:19 PM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
@ErisLordFreedom: My wife wrote this book In 2010:
little green dresses
She has since gone into wholly different directions and would like to never think about this book again but it does give you ideas on how to do this.
posted by nikaspark at 1:21 PM on August 2, 2018
little green dresses
She has since gone into wholly different directions and would like to never think about this book again but it does give you ideas on how to do this.
posted by nikaspark at 1:21 PM on August 2, 2018
I sort of long for the time when clothes were well made, durable, and more expensive. Fashion moved slower. People owned fewer clothes - and buying clothes second hand made sense, since it was still good clothing with life left in it, instead of cheap stuff halfway to disintegrating. But then I know there are kids in my neighbourhood who only have one or two outfits, and I don't want to price the poor out of the market.
Yeah, that time also had really poor kids running around in, like, a longish shirt and nothing else. It meant that lower-class people went around in torn and stained clothes for years. (Remember poor Leonard Bast and the shame of his ill-fitting sleeves?) It meant that people who gained or lost meaningful amounts of weight (or who hit their adolescent growth spurts[*]) were walking around in incredibly ill-fitting clothing (or, depending on circumstance, had to pay for the skill of tailoring). It also, frankly, meant that people were a lot stinkier.
A proposal to end "cheap fashion" needs to address these realities. I'm not saying it can't be done, but, like most nostalgia, the yearning for the days of "well-made clothes" tends to blur some ugly underpinnings.
* I was recently rereading Portrait of a Lady and was struck by the fact that teenage Pansy Osmond's dress is mentioned as having already been let out several times. The Osmonds were "poor" only in the highly specialized Jamesian sense of owning lots of medieval bric-a-brac and having to share a rented villa outside Florence because their yearly interest income in cash "[wasn't] vulgarly large," but that just goes to show how weirdly high up the social scale the practice went. The first time I read the novel, I didn't notice it at all, because my family was financially quite unstable and so we kids were ourselves often dressed in weird mended and home-tailored castoffs and hand-me-downs.
posted by praemunire at 1:32 PM on August 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
Yeah, that time also had really poor kids running around in, like, a longish shirt and nothing else. It meant that lower-class people went around in torn and stained clothes for years. (Remember poor Leonard Bast and the shame of his ill-fitting sleeves?) It meant that people who gained or lost meaningful amounts of weight (or who hit their adolescent growth spurts[*]) were walking around in incredibly ill-fitting clothing (or, depending on circumstance, had to pay for the skill of tailoring). It also, frankly, meant that people were a lot stinkier.
A proposal to end "cheap fashion" needs to address these realities. I'm not saying it can't be done, but, like most nostalgia, the yearning for the days of "well-made clothes" tends to blur some ugly underpinnings.
* I was recently rereading Portrait of a Lady and was struck by the fact that teenage Pansy Osmond's dress is mentioned as having already been let out several times. The Osmonds were "poor" only in the highly specialized Jamesian sense of owning lots of medieval bric-a-brac and having to share a rented villa outside Florence because their yearly interest income in cash "[wasn't] vulgarly large," but that just goes to show how weirdly high up the social scale the practice went. The first time I read the novel, I didn't notice it at all, because my family was financially quite unstable and so we kids were ourselves often dressed in weird mended and home-tailored castoffs and hand-me-downs.
posted by praemunire at 1:32 PM on August 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
Yea it's wasteful to destroy unused bags, but landfills are not the source of plastic micro particles and other trash in the ocean, fishing gear is. Tackle that you'll start to make a decent dent.
Cite? Cause I read about this all the time and never have I seen this listed as a major contributor.
I hear this all the time...that something ELSE is the problem. It's all a problem when it's discarded.
posted by agregoli at 2:15 PM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Cite? Cause I read about this all the time and never have I seen this listed as a major contributor.
I hear this all the time...that something ELSE is the problem. It's all a problem when it's discarded.
posted by agregoli at 2:15 PM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Inexpensive fashion is not the same as fast fashion. You can have inexpensive fashion without fast fashion.
posted by nikaspark at 3:30 PM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by nikaspark at 3:30 PM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Affordability issues aside, quality durable clothing (particularly for women) is almost unavailable in retail stores, regardless of the price range. It’s not like cheap fashion is one option available to people— it’s basically the only option available to anyone, particularly if you are trying to purchase feminine-coded clothing.
Fast fashion is also literally the source of the Vimes boots problem. Cheap clothes may be less expensive, but if they fall apart quickly poor families are no better off.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 4:31 PM on August 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
Fast fashion is also literally the source of the Vimes boots problem. Cheap clothes may be less expensive, but if they fall apart quickly poor families are no better off.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 4:31 PM on August 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
Cite? Cause I read about this all the time and never have I seen this listed as a major contributor.
One of the top results from a search for nets ocean plastic: Straws Aren't the Real Problem. Fishing Nets Account for 46 Percent of All Ocean Plastic.
posted by Lexica at 4:36 PM on August 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
One of the top results from a search for nets ocean plastic: Straws Aren't the Real Problem. Fishing Nets Account for 46 Percent of All Ocean Plastic.
posted by Lexica at 4:36 PM on August 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
The EU banned lead-based metals in electronic devices because they were contaminating water tables
Forgive me for a partial derail, but this is absolutely not the case - there's no evidence to suggest that SnPb solder can release any meaningful amount of lead into groundwater, and the EU's banning of SnPb solder was and continues to be a financial, social and ecological disaster. Boards using lead-free solder joints require more energy to produce, work and recycle than SnPb, and the joints have pitiful reliability. There's a reason there was an exemption from the law for medical or military devices - such things have to keep working for longer than a couple of years before being tossed into a landfill.
Those landfills, right now, are growing by the hour, being filled up with electronic devices that just stopped working for no good reason. And that's domestic electronics - cellphones and games consoles and televisions and laptops, things that in the grand scheme of things don't really matter. Not yet, but coming soon, will be things like pacemakers (exemption ended 2014), defibrillators (exemption ends 2021), traffic light control systems, jet planes...
Having formerly-reliable electronics break down and need to be replaced every few years is an environmental nightmare, widens the gap between the rich and the poor, contributes to our "throw-away culture" and sends mountains of miserable recycling detritus to developing countries as it sends mountains of blood money to already-rich sociopaths.
I'm just some crank on the internet who lies awake at night worrying about what's going to happen when a tin whisker grows somewhere inside a nuclear power station's control systems, so you probably shouldn't believe me - but here's what NASA has to say about it.
posted by FeatherWatt at 6:12 PM on August 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
Forgive me for a partial derail, but this is absolutely not the case - there's no evidence to suggest that SnPb solder can release any meaningful amount of lead into groundwater, and the EU's banning of SnPb solder was and continues to be a financial, social and ecological disaster. Boards using lead-free solder joints require more energy to produce, work and recycle than SnPb, and the joints have pitiful reliability. There's a reason there was an exemption from the law for medical or military devices - such things have to keep working for longer than a couple of years before being tossed into a landfill.
Those landfills, right now, are growing by the hour, being filled up with electronic devices that just stopped working for no good reason. And that's domestic electronics - cellphones and games consoles and televisions and laptops, things that in the grand scheme of things don't really matter. Not yet, but coming soon, will be things like pacemakers (exemption ended 2014), defibrillators (exemption ends 2021), traffic light control systems, jet planes...
Having formerly-reliable electronics break down and need to be replaced every few years is an environmental nightmare, widens the gap between the rich and the poor, contributes to our "throw-away culture" and sends mountains of miserable recycling detritus to developing countries as it sends mountains of blood money to already-rich sociopaths.
I'm just some crank on the internet who lies awake at night worrying about what's going to happen when a tin whisker grows somewhere inside a nuclear power station's control systems, so you probably shouldn't believe me - but here's what NASA has to say about it.
posted by FeatherWatt at 6:12 PM on August 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
If clothing manufacturers can discard 26 billion pounds of clothing a year
I believe this number refers to all sources of waste, not just from clothing manufacturers. (Based on the second link.)
posted by sylvanshine at 8:06 PM on August 2, 2018
I believe this number refers to all sources of waste, not just from clothing manufacturers. (Based on the second link.)
posted by sylvanshine at 8:06 PM on August 2, 2018
Cheap clothes may be less expensive, but if they fall apart quickly poor families are no better off.
I think you're not taking into account that the decent usability of clothes is not determined strictly by whether the seams are coming apart or not. If you have only two dresses, even if they are well-made, then you are vulnerable to stains, scorches, tears, moths (note: moths don't eat cheap synthetic fabrics!), changes in height/weight, etc. Let's not even get into summer vs. winter clothing.
And, no, a family may not ever be able to accumulate $10 for one clothing item (there are factors that militate against poor households being able to save meaningfully over time), but can get $3. Does the $10 item actually last more than 3.5x the $3 item? For reasons mentioned above, maybe, but maybe not. But even if it would, that's all just theory if your growing kid needs pants for the cooler weather right now and you only have $3. (And especially if your kid is going to grow out of the item in less than 3.5x the time!)
posted by praemunire at 8:27 PM on August 2, 2018
I think you're not taking into account that the decent usability of clothes is not determined strictly by whether the seams are coming apart or not. If you have only two dresses, even if they are well-made, then you are vulnerable to stains, scorches, tears, moths (note: moths don't eat cheap synthetic fabrics!), changes in height/weight, etc. Let's not even get into summer vs. winter clothing.
And, no, a family may not ever be able to accumulate $10 for one clothing item (there are factors that militate against poor households being able to save meaningfully over time), but can get $3. Does the $10 item actually last more than 3.5x the $3 item? For reasons mentioned above, maybe, but maybe not. But even if it would, that's all just theory if your growing kid needs pants for the cooler weather right now and you only have $3. (And especially if your kid is going to grow out of the item in less than 3.5x the time!)
posted by praemunire at 8:27 PM on August 2, 2018
Yeah, that time also had really poor kids running around in, like, a longish shirt and nothing else. It meant that lower-class people went around in torn and stained clothes for years.
I mean, I didn't ignore this in that comment, I explicitly mentioned it as an issue twice. I want better made clothes, less waste, AND high taxes that provide for the poor to have them too.
posted by stillnocturnal at 3:06 AM on August 3, 2018
I mean, I didn't ignore this in that comment, I explicitly mentioned it as an issue twice. I want better made clothes, less waste, AND high taxes that provide for the poor to have them too.
posted by stillnocturnal at 3:06 AM on August 3, 2018
Yeah, that time also had really poor kids running around in, like, a longish shirt and nothing else. It meant that lower-class people went around in torn and stained clothes for years. (Remember poor Leonard Bast and the shame of his ill-fitting sleeves?) It meant that people who gained or lost meaningful amounts of weight (or who hit their adolescent growth spurts[*]) were walking around in incredibly ill-fitting clothing (or, depending on circumstance, had to pay for the skill of tailoring). It also, frankly, meant that people were a lot stinkier.
Well, there's a bit of space between 1910 and 2018; I'm fifty-coughmumble and I vividly remember better-quality clothing being standard back in the 70s, 80s and into the 90s. There used to be a really solid difference between K-mart crap, absurdly expensive yet beautiful high-end stuff, and the well-made mid-range stuff (usually a store's own-brand items). Much of what fashion bloggers and Instagrammers currently call "a curated wardrobe" is just the way I was taught to shop by my mother -- buy several items per season, making sure they'll go with the stuff you already own; keep everything in good repair, laundering it appropriately. Buy a couple of flashy supertrendy things, but assume that otherwise everything will be in your closet for at least three or four years, probably six to seven, barring radical changes in fashion or your shape.
This isn't and wasn't nuttily expensive. Everyone could buy clothes, and not for radically more, proportionally, than we spend now. It just wasn't considered normal for everything to be made of shit material that would fall apart at the first washing. And steady-state strawberry is perfectly right -- everything now is made in the same factories to the same standards, no matter what the label or the price point. A good sweater will last forever. I have several pristine Norwegian knits that belonged to my grandparents. I also have two very expensive (ie, more than 400 bucks) cashmere pullovers, bought in the last 4 years, that both developed pills within the first 2 months and that now are really only good to be thrown away.
We need to produce less, and get off the frantic produce/consume cycle. We also need unions. Global ones.
posted by jrochest at 5:01 AM on August 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
Well, there's a bit of space between 1910 and 2018; I'm fifty-coughmumble and I vividly remember better-quality clothing being standard back in the 70s, 80s and into the 90s. There used to be a really solid difference between K-mart crap, absurdly expensive yet beautiful high-end stuff, and the well-made mid-range stuff (usually a store's own-brand items). Much of what fashion bloggers and Instagrammers currently call "a curated wardrobe" is just the way I was taught to shop by my mother -- buy several items per season, making sure they'll go with the stuff you already own; keep everything in good repair, laundering it appropriately. Buy a couple of flashy supertrendy things, but assume that otherwise everything will be in your closet for at least three or four years, probably six to seven, barring radical changes in fashion or your shape.
This isn't and wasn't nuttily expensive. Everyone could buy clothes, and not for radically more, proportionally, than we spend now. It just wasn't considered normal for everything to be made of shit material that would fall apart at the first washing. And steady-state strawberry is perfectly right -- everything now is made in the same factories to the same standards, no matter what the label or the price point. A good sweater will last forever. I have several pristine Norwegian knits that belonged to my grandparents. I also have two very expensive (ie, more than 400 bucks) cashmere pullovers, bought in the last 4 years, that both developed pills within the first 2 months and that now are really only good to be thrown away.
We need to produce less, and get off the frantic produce/consume cycle. We also need unions. Global ones.
posted by jrochest at 5:01 AM on August 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
As mentioned, were in a situation where the Vimes Boot Theory breaks down cause it’s entirely possible to buy very expensive clothing that is also complete shit. Private equality funds by brands with good reputations and then drive them into the ground, anything decent in the secondhand cycle is bought up by eBay or curated shops. It’s just garbage clothing we don’t need, produced st s rate we don’t want, going into landfills we can’t sustain.
posted by The Whelk at 8:07 AM on August 3, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 8:07 AM on August 3, 2018 [7 favorites]
I mean, I didn't ignore this in that comment, I explicitly mentioned it as an issue twice. I want better made clothes, less waste, AND high taxes that provide for the poor to have them too.
I actually quoted part of the sentence where you noted the issue because I didn't want to imply that you were oblivious, but saying "I want x thing, but I guess there's y problem" isn't really much of a discussion of the dimensions of the problem, you know? As someone whose family struggled even to buy K-Mart level clothes for us in my childhood, and as an ex-historian, I feel people often don't fully appreciate the extent of the quandary.
I have several pristine Norwegian knits that belonged to my grandparents. I also have two very expensive (ie, more than 400 bucks) cashmere pullovers, bought in the last 4 years, that both developed pills within the first 2 months and that now are really only good to be thrown away.
I'm not going to argue that there's not a lot of very low-quality "cashmere" out there these days, but it would be shocking if a Norwegian-style sweater didn't significantly outlast a cashmere sweater on average, whatever era you choose. Cashmere is a very short-fiber yarn, which is what makes it soft. It's also what makes it pill. People have also generally preferred for aesthetic reasons, or been stuck with for cost/availability reasons, fine-gauge cashmere yarns, which means greater vulnerability to other forms of damage. Norwegian sweaters are traditionally knitted out of much longer-staple, and hence less comfortable, yarn, and usually in a heavier gauge also. I'm not even a sewer/seamstress/tailor, only a knitter, but in my observation most people talking about "well-made" clothes have no clue what they're actually talking about, technically, except that they sense (correctly) that they're not getting them.
posted by praemunire at 10:41 AM on August 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
I actually quoted part of the sentence where you noted the issue because I didn't want to imply that you were oblivious, but saying "I want x thing, but I guess there's y problem" isn't really much of a discussion of the dimensions of the problem, you know? As someone whose family struggled even to buy K-Mart level clothes for us in my childhood, and as an ex-historian, I feel people often don't fully appreciate the extent of the quandary.
I have several pristine Norwegian knits that belonged to my grandparents. I also have two very expensive (ie, more than 400 bucks) cashmere pullovers, bought in the last 4 years, that both developed pills within the first 2 months and that now are really only good to be thrown away.
I'm not going to argue that there's not a lot of very low-quality "cashmere" out there these days, but it would be shocking if a Norwegian-style sweater didn't significantly outlast a cashmere sweater on average, whatever era you choose. Cashmere is a very short-fiber yarn, which is what makes it soft. It's also what makes it pill. People have also generally preferred for aesthetic reasons, or been stuck with for cost/availability reasons, fine-gauge cashmere yarns, which means greater vulnerability to other forms of damage. Norwegian sweaters are traditionally knitted out of much longer-staple, and hence less comfortable, yarn, and usually in a heavier gauge also. I'm not even a sewer/seamstress/tailor, only a knitter, but in my observation most people talking about "well-made" clothes have no clue what they're actually talking about, technically, except that they sense (correctly) that they're not getting them.
posted by praemunire at 10:41 AM on August 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
Yeah, I guess part of my perspective is that when my family was struggling, we got a whole lot of clothes from other families that they had grown out of - but this was only possible because those clothes were well made to begin with. Of course we were lucky to have those connections, and nobody should have to rely on charity.
It's the same issue as with food - to pay the workers fairly and treat the animals humanely, it needs to be more expensive than it is, but boy can you not do that without addressing the fact that many, many people can barely afford to eat as it is. The whole system is broken, really, until we are willing to provide a decent income to the ill and the unemployed and the disabled there's no good way to solve all these other problems. Sorry if I came across as a little touchy, I think maybe it's all just getting to me today.
posted by stillnocturnal at 12:26 PM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's the same issue as with food - to pay the workers fairly and treat the animals humanely, it needs to be more expensive than it is, but boy can you not do that without addressing the fact that many, many people can barely afford to eat as it is. The whole system is broken, really, until we are willing to provide a decent income to the ill and the unemployed and the disabled there's no good way to solve all these other problems. Sorry if I came across as a little touchy, I think maybe it's all just getting to me today.
posted by stillnocturnal at 12:26 PM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Related, I recently started quilting and wanted to learn more about fabric production so I watched from beginning to end this fascinating video of the production of printed cotton fabric in China.
There's another one on the production of traditional batik fabric in Indonesia which naturally is much less mechanized, but the process was equally enlightening.
It really hit home for me the labor and other resources and external costs (in most cases environmental pollution and political oppression) that go into the things I take so much for granted. As I watched the Chinese production in particular - in which the fabric being produced was pretty unattractive - I couldn't help but think of how much of the labor and other resources would be going to waste when the material was discarded or made into items that have such short lives.
posted by 6thsense at 10:19 PM on August 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
There's another one on the production of traditional batik fabric in Indonesia which naturally is much less mechanized, but the process was equally enlightening.
It really hit home for me the labor and other resources and external costs (in most cases environmental pollution and political oppression) that go into the things I take so much for granted. As I watched the Chinese production in particular - in which the fabric being produced was pretty unattractive - I couldn't help but think of how much of the labor and other resources would be going to waste when the material was discarded or made into items that have such short lives.
posted by 6thsense at 10:19 PM on August 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's astonishing how little clothes cost to make -- you can get an idea browsing AliExpress, where you can order directly from factories in China. I get good quality men's dress shirts for around $10 including shipping, which is presumably a lot more than a store like Burberry pays. (Burberry is buying in massive quantities from places like Bangladesh and Vietnam, which are lower income and have fewer worker protections than China). Which is to say, destroying £28m of retail-priced clothes might have only been £2.8m of non-marked-up value.
Also, if you're a roughly averagely sized person, measure yourself and start buying on AliExpress!
posted by miyabo at 6:48 PM on August 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
Also, if you're a roughly averagely sized person, measure yourself and start buying on AliExpress!
posted by miyabo at 6:48 PM on August 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
Quickly chiming in to voice agreement with FeatherWatt. Lead free solder is fucking rubbish. Since the regs were introduced I've had far more joints breaking down and having to be cleaned and replaced (and fuck redoing lead free solder, seriously fuck it). Stuff I made 15 years ago with leaded solder? Still fine, shiny and strong, no trouble with the joints, it's the wire insulation degrading or the casing giving out usually. Stuff I made after the regs? Ugh. I'm good at this shit so the rate of repair isn't that far off, but the scale of repair is worse and the potential damage in the midst of repair is worse because surprise surprise, boards also need to be pb free!
At some point I'll make an fpp about tin whiskers, that unwanted bugbear of our manufacturing times. But yes, it's a serious fucking concern.
posted by E. Whitehall at 8:48 PM on August 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
At some point I'll make an fpp about tin whiskers, that unwanted bugbear of our manufacturing times. But yes, it's a serious fucking concern.
posted by E. Whitehall at 8:48 PM on August 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
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Capitalism.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 9:20 AM on August 2, 2018 [14 favorites]