Funded by:
Reducing environmental impact
and addressing skills gaps through
responsible wardrobe management
In collaboration with:
The Care & Repair project aimed to explore the critical relationship between consumers, brands and the charity retail sector regarding garment care, repair and second-life ownership to encourage responsible wardrobe management.
Collaborating with UKFT and St. Oswald’s Hospice, the project empowered stakeholders with foundational skills to facilitate sustainable clothing behaviours intended to extend the lifetime of clothing.
The problem
UK consumers wear a garment less than twice on average, with £30 billion of unused clothing residing in wardrobes, and an estimated £140 million worth of clothing annually ending up in landfill, with only 1% of clothing being recycled into new products, according to WRAP (WRAP, 2020). Of the 11.5 thousand UK charity shops between ten and 30 per cent of second-hand donations are resold in store, with many garments entering this waste stream or being diverted to landfill simply because they need repairing, typically because of stains, tears, pilling, broken seams and missing buttons. Care and repair will increasingly become a major requirement for brands, charities and consumers, yet current initiatives are uncoordinated or inaccessible for many stakeholders.
UK Context:
Only 1% of clothing is recycled into new products
There is £30 billion worth of unused clothing in wardrobes
£140 million of clothing ending up in landfill anually
The Opportunity
A co-ordinated response is needed to change how clothing is managed and consumed to extend the life of a garment and minimise waste. Reducing the rate at which the fashion industry is consuming resources is dependent on reducing the amount consumers purchase and extending garment longevity. This can be achieved through careful post-consumption clothing management, repair, renovation, renewal and upcycling.
Ensuring that reduced environmental impact in domestic aftercare settings occurs will require a collaborative approach between brands, NGOs and consumers. This will be achieved through a combination of knowledge and skills development and community engagement through a care & repair guide. The guide will be disseminated through brand-driven sessions and knowledge exchange workshops.
Project Objectives:
To empower consumers through repair skills in preventing damaged clothing being donated to the charity retail sector
To explore brand communication strategies regarding care and durability
To analyse the relationship between consumer understanding of environmental impact and care practices
To enable the charity retail sector to divert damaged donations from rag and landfill through repair mechanisms
Repair Workshops
In collaboration with:
We collected garments that needed repairing from donations given to the charity and volunteers were given the option to learn either embellishment or darning. In addition to up skilling, it was a great opportunity for us to gather data on the volunteers attitudes and opinions towards repair within the charity retail sector.
Care Workshop
In collaboration with:
Collaborating with UKFT we facilitated a workshop with industry professionals working in garment technology and sustainability roles and discussed their current strategies, challenges and knowledge gaps. Additionally, participants brainstormed ideas about the future of care communication in light of a shifting policy landscape.
The Care and Repair for Environmental Sustainability (CARES) Project:
Implementing the care and repair guide to activate clothing maintenance, repair, renovation and renewal skills across stakeholder groups