From One Use to Another

Recycling is a very common word to almost everyone, but does the general public really know what what happens to items they recycle? Most people take their clothing to a recycling bin and never think about what happens to it after that. For all they know it might not even actually get recycled.  If this is the case they are helping to continue the cradle to grave cycle.  However, I think more people will actually recycle if they know exactly what their recycled items are going toward. Are their clothes going to just be given to someone else or are they going to be made into something better.  The hope is that they are going to be made into something better, which is what we call cradle to cradle or upcycling. To me this is technical metabolism, knowing what exactly is taking place in the closed repeating loop of the recycling process.

In the Cradle to Cradle reading from this week it discusses how important it is to use natural fibers and chemicals that do not hurt the environment.  In my opinion, this is the first step.  If our designers and producers are still using products that hurt the environment it ultimately won't matter if they are recycled or not because at some point they will not decompose. This means we must first convince and teach manufacturers and designers what is good for the environment and what is harmful. In Textile Futures, Quinn explains cradle to cradle saying all discarded fabrics are seen as having potential to acquire fresh life as a new form.  This will help eliminate the concept of textile waste.

The new concept I came up with this week helps the apparel world and interior world come together.  I don't know about everyone else, but I have a huge pile of tshirts in my room that I know longer wear. Some of them have been washed so many times they are worn out, but I can't bring myself to just get rid of all of them.  The idea I have is taking these t-shirts and making them into shag rugs.  If you cut the t-shirts into small strips and weave them together they make the perfect shag carpet. Another good reason they would make good rugs is because like I said before most of them have been washed thousands of times and are very soft because of this.  Turning old t-shirts into rugs turns something that has no use besides sitting in a drawer to something of great use and something that is appealing to the eye of customers.