By
Gillian Yerington
Introduction: Textile Supply Chain Research
Layers of sweat and dirt cling to my face. It is 105°F. Arriving home from work, I turn the knob on the faucet--nothing. There is no water, again. Which means no dishes can be cleaned, no bodies can be washed, and no toilets can be flushed until the water returns.
During a summer internship in Chennai, India, I experienced a drought. When wells dry up, people rely on trucks to bring them water. However, there are not enough trucks to meet the needs of everyone. Sometimes they have to wait days for the water to come back. Experiencing the effects and fatigue of not having access to daily water fundamentally changed my perception of global water use. I was compelled to study water scarcity and the power dynamics that influence who does and does not have water.
The next summer I worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council and U-M where I investigated water use in textile supply chains. I learned about the devastating impact the textile industry has on humans and nature. I interviewed, surveyed, and analyzed top manufacturers for U-M, discovering the difficulty of assessing environmental impact and the lack of visibility within the industry. To create more awareness of the problems within the fashion industry, I made Wasted Water. Wasted Water is a large scale weaving constructed entirely from discarded t-shirts that responds to American apparel waste and global water scarcity. The painstaking process of handweaving acts as a penance to all the people that are affected by our endless desire to purchase more clothing. Through the process of weaving, I began to see a lack of awareness of individual consumption patterns. I analyzed sustainability and yet I purchased much more new clothing than I needed. My experiences abroad, researching sustainability, and making art about environmental problems left me with the conclusion that I had to decrease the amount of clothing that I purchase and repair clothing before replacing it.
Fashion Throw Away Culture
Now I do not buy new clothes. I rely on thrift stores and sewing to update my closet. Producing new garments is resource intensive, creating an urgent need for more people to buy used apparel. On average, Americans throw away 81 lbs. of textile waste per year, much of which could be recycled. However, most clothing ends up in the landfill because it is less expensive to produce clothing from new materials than old. Beyond recycling, clothing can also be donated. However, only about 15% of clothing is donated to charity, and only about 45% of that clothing is reused. Clothing donation centers often end up sending unsold clothing to recycling centers because there is not enough space or demand for them to sell all of the donated clothing. Recycled apparel is made into insulation and industrial rags, materials often thrown away after a single use. In order to address the vast amount of textile waste, consumers must work to reduce their textile footprints by buying fewer clothes and recycling centers must improve sorting and reuse techniques.
Wasted Water aims to emphasize American apparel waste.
Wasted Water, 10’x7’, used t-shirt, cotton string
The piece is woven from strips of discarded apparel, displaying how much textile waste each American abandons every year, weighing a total of 81 lbs., when displayed in a gallery setting. The purpose of Wasted Water is to demonstrate to consumers the enormous quantity of textile refuse produced and serve as a call to action to opt for alternate, more sustainable apparel purchasing patterns.
State of the Fashion Industry
According to the World Bank, the textile dyeing and finishing industry accounts for 17 to 20 percent of the global industrial water pollution, making it the second highest contributor to global water pollution (behind agriculture). In some parts of the world, textile factories put untreated water directly into drinking water and agriculture water sources, leading to human consumption of toxic chemicals which have been linked to cancer. In the process of growing fibers for clothing, cotton accounts for 25% of all fertilizer used in agriculture, leading to disruptions in natural ecosystems. Synthetic fibers such, such as polyester, produce microplastics which kill aquatic life and contaminate drinking water. A single cotton t-shirt uses 2,700 liters of water in production.
My project, Wasted Water, utilizes the environmental statistics about global water scarcity and the extreme water use that textile production causes to create a sense of urgency that will inspire viewers to rethink their purchasing patterns. By limiting buying and using clothing longer, consumers will decrease textile demand, resulting in less water use and pollution. It is my intention that when a viewer sees the weaving they begin to understand some of the broader impacts of water in the apparel industry and the need to conserve it.
Global Lack of Access to Water
Given the limited amount of water available for consumption, excessive water use can result in a lack of adequate drinking water available to vulnerable communities. According to the World Health Organization, about 30% of the world has to walk 30 minutes or more to access water and 144 million of the people with low access to water rely on unfiltered surface water. The onslaught of global warming and the resulting extreme weather, culminates in less certainty of surface water availability. People in countries with fewer environmental regulations are more likely to drink contaminated water, polluted by industrial waste. In Wasted Water, the scribble pattern depicted in the weaving represents the 30 minute plus walk to get water. The motif was made by walking 35 minutes to a body of water and collecting water with my sketchbook in hand.
Scribble sketch, created while walking 35 minutes to get water
Visually, the scribble marks represent the motion and movement of the body to access water. The scale of the piece allows the viewer an intimate view of the abstracted movement of water collection.
Conclusion
As I stand and stare at my own work, I think about all the people and machines that helped create Wasted Water. Seamstresses, farmers, chemists, mechanics, retailers, consumers, business people, and myself all touched the work. I will never know what their experience of the material was. For me, through the slow process of handweaving, foot after foot of material, my back ached; my hands bled from constant friction with the weft material. The pain of making acted as a penance to my overconsumption. I feel a sense of hope that we will learn to reuse, but know we will likely continue to throw away too much. Wasted Water is an effort to raise awareness about global water use in the textile supply chain and how that affects people. As I conclude the integrative project, I will continue to collect the leftover clothing and make art anew.
Bibliography
Cline, Elizabeth. “Where Does Discarded Clothing Go?” The Atlantic. July 18, 2014. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/where-does-discarded-clothing-go/ 374613/.
“Drinking-Water.” The World Health Organization. The World Health Organization, June 14, 2019. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water.
Gilmore, Nicholas. “Ready-to-Waste: America’s Clothing Crisis.” The Saturday Evening Post, January 16, 2018. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2018/01/ready- waste-americas-clothing-crisis/.
Kant, Rita. “Textile Dyeing Industry an Environmental Hazard .” Natural Science 4, no. 1 (January 14, 2012): 22–26. https://file.scirp.org/pdf/NS20120100003_72866800.pdf.
Paddison, Laura. “Single Clothes Wash May Release 700,000 Microplastic Fibres, Study Finds.” The Guardian. September 26, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/27/ washing-clothes-releases-water-polluting-fibres-study-finds.
“The Impact of a Cotton T-Shirt.” WWF. World Wildlife Fund, January 16, 2013. https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/the-impact-of-a-cotton-t-shirt.