My new bag…sponsored by Mark’s brain & and an old pair of pants

Through out my life my Mom has talked about how when she was growing up her family would reuse old clothes to patch jackets or even make new clothes. Sewing was a big part of what the family did. It’s just what people did when they didn’t have a lot of money, and also when the clothes that you were purchasing cost more then they do now. Today things have changed and it has become much easier to just throw away clothes as the cost of buying new clothing is quite inexpensive (unless you are buying designer clothing and if that’s the case I’d encourage you to read No Logo).

There are heaps of ethics associated with how cheap clothing is these days (see sweatshops), but my point is more the recognition of the fact that there is still plenty of use with the clothing that we do throw away. I feel a sense of responsibility to really use all parts of the clothing I purchase in as many ways as I can because so much energy goes into creating that for me in the first place.

Almost a week ago I was getting ready to leave the Permaforest Trust and had to go through my room figuring out what was worth keeping, throwing out, and saving. One of my pairs of work pants was quite trashed (massive hole in the bum that couldn’t be repaired unless I had a bed sheet to fill the hole). It just suddenly dawned on me…

Why not harvest (like seed saving) all the things that can be saved off the pants?