A new approach – Friendly Fashion and ‘Ecotoure’ !

A load of Rubbish!

Since a young age, I have adored fashion. Seeing models promote beautifully structured, eye catching clothing both captivates and excites me. So of course when I was asked to take part in the “Junk Kouture fashion show”, I was instantly overwhelmed with a flurry of ideas on how to dress these models in fabulous recycled material! The aim of this annual event is to ignite a passion for sustainable fashion in second level students across Ireland, while simultaneously educating them about the importance of recycling and reusing. Essentially the idea is to turn garbage into glamour!

 I began by meeting with art students of a local secondary school. We sat down and discussed materials that would be appropriate to use to create an outfit suitable for a runway show. By the next day the students had already gathered their “junk” and had started work on their designs. The materials ranged from plastic bottles, electric cables, wire tubing, tinfoil, newspaper, broken glass, wine corks, bin bags and the list goes on! Together we set to work and after weeks of hard work we had successfully assembled some terrific examples of Eco Fashion. Three of the outfits have made it into the final rounds of the competition which everyone is extremely proud of, but we could also have the winner for 2014 so keep those fingers crossed!

 

Here are some pictures of contestants from both this year and previous years, taking part in the fashion show. Visit the website http://www.junkkouture.com to learn more about this innovative idea and get inspired and excited about sustainable fashion!

Friendly fibres and fabrics

Although I promote this fantastic competition, I am not completely unaware that it is completely unreasonable to expect people to stroll about town wearing clothes made out of their old Chinese food containers! There is in fact, a more subtle approach to sustainable fashion.                

                                                                                                       

Recycled or reclaimed fibres are those that are made from scraps of fabrics collected from clothing factories, which are processed back into short fibres for spinning into a new yarn. There are only a few facilities globally that are able to process the clippings, and  variations range from a blend of recycled cotton fibres for strength to recycled cotton fibres/virgin acrylic fibres which are added for colour, consistency and strength.

The good news is that designers say that they are trying to incorporate these sustainable practices into modern clothing, rather than producing "hippie clothes."  In particular, designer Stella McCartney has recently drawn attention to socially conscious and environmentally friendly fashion, by promoting "Portland Fashion Week", which annually showcases sustainable apparel. It has also attracted international press for its efforts to sustainably produce a fashion

week that showcases 100% eco-friendly designs.

However here is the bad news, due to the efforts taken to minimize harm in the growth, manufacturing, and shipping of these products, sustainable fashion is typically more expensive than clothing produced by conventional methods! Let us not be disheartened, there are still plenty of ways we can improve the sustainability of our wardrobes!

Here are the main factors to bear in mind when considering the sustainability of a material:

·         The renewability and source of a fibre

·          The process of how a raw fibre is turned into a textile

·         The working conditions of the people producing the materials

·         The material's total carbon footprint    

                                                                                                          

When shopping, look at the clothes labels and keep an eye out for fabrics like organic cotton, naturally coloured cotton or those made from soy, hemp or bamboo fibres.   These are all examples of excellent sustainable fabrics.

They may still be a little bit hard to come by in our local shopping centres but I have included a link to one of my favourite online shopping websites “Reformation”. They are an environmentally sustainable fashion brand that repurposes vintage and surplus materials to create a chic, limited edition collection.

So start your fashion revolution now!   http://thereformation.com/

  

Fiona Molloy

Carpooling: The Drive to Green.

It was the summer of 2010; myself and a friend were on a trip of a lifetime inter-railing around Europe. For those of you who have never inter-railed, an inter-rail pass is a train ticket for EU members allowing you to travel between countries in the EU over a period of time.
Inter-railing is an experience to say the least. Leaving aside the crazy nights out, the sun, sea, historical sites and the people you meet along the way. You can often arrive in new location tired, hungry, and bagged down and with no idea of where you’re staying, or what you’re doing.

It was this mixed bag of emotions which we were carrying when we were hurled off an overnight train in Stuttgart mid journey from Munich to Paris. The train had been double booked, they had no record of our reservations, and no sympathy for the tired tears that ran down our grubby faces – Off we stepped at 3am into Stuttgart. We desperately needed to get to Paris on time –but how? Despite the lack of customers one solitary café remained open despite the lack of customers. This Café introduced us to a Danish girl who was fluent in English and German, she kindly helped us to look up tickets for the next train, and at two hundred Euros each we quickly resigned to the fact that we were doomed.   Seeing our reaction the Dane stepped up her game and introduced us to the Mid- European phenomenon of Carpooling.

The majority of us have heard of people sharing lifts to work or school in order to save; time, money and of course the environment. This goes a step further. We found a website advertising free spaces in a car which was travelling from one destination to another, each passenger pooled their money together to pay for the petrol. So there we were at 4.30 am calling a strange number arranging a lift to Paris from Stuttgart and by 7 am we were in a car with four other people! By pooling together we saved the money and the environment through more efficient use of petrol as it would take the same amount of petrol to take one of us from Stuttgart to Paris.

Carpooling evidently means more people in a one car, this means less cars on the road, this can directly lead to less pollution; Less air pollution, noise pollution, less carbon emission, less greenhouse gas emission. Evidently carpooling is a major and direct step towards a cleaner and greener environment.  When we arrived safely in Paris we wished our fellow commuters a nice trip and parted ways. For a simple 30 euro each we made an economical saving of 170 euro each, in comparison to the alternative train ticket, while simultaneously saving the environment.

Although many people have questioned the safety element of ‘getting in a car with a stranger’ this carpooling idea could easily be adopted to the business sector of Ireland with many people making trips from Dublin to Galway or Cork on a daily basis it would be a safe and easy way to save the money and the environment to simply set up a business carpooling community and drive towards green.

Jane Farrelly

Internationalisation and long-distance relationships : the carbon impact of the ERASMUS generation’s air travels

 Since its creation in 1987, the Erasmus programme has developed into what is now considered a massive success and a considerable achievement in terms of connecting European Universities and people. From a few thousands students in 1987-1988 to about 180 000 in 2007-2009, more than 3 millions students overall benefited from this programme and grants and went abroad to study as Erasmus students. They were thus offered the unique chance to travel, discover new countries, learn about new cultures, mix with new people, in  the hope that, on top of often learning another language, they would create emotional bounds with other places and people which would make them truly internationalised European citizens.

However, as much as internationalising affections and relationships might have the capacity to bring European people closer, it certainly doesn’t shorten the actual distances which separates their countries. By allowing and encouraging young people to go abroad, and to become attached to places and people far from their home, the European Union has participated in creating an even more mobile category of people, whose nomadism is not primarily professional but sentimental. My point here is that such bounds have an ecological cost, particularly in regards to transportation use.

Erasmus students have to deal with two kinds of long-distance ties : those which precede their departure and that they wish to maintain when they’re abroad, and those they create in their host country, which they will attempt to conserve after leaving it. The first category typically includes family and childhood friends, and requires regular visit usually justified by specific circumstances (Christmas, important events, grave issues...). Romantic relationships are even more demanding, since visits are spontaneously expected to be as frequent as possible. They are also likely to receive visits from their friends and family during their time abroad. The second category may involve a girlfriend/boyfriend as well, and more generally friends, from the host country or elsewhere, but most likely not from the exact same place. Some of these people will remain dear enough to be visited later on, and they will perhaps visit too, which means that former Erasmus students will be tempted to travel around to see all their friends, those who stayed, and those who spread out as they went back to their home country.

It is quite clear that such intense travelling would have a massive impact on personal carbon footprint, in which transportation habits play a big part: it is estimated that approximately 56% of CO₂ equivalent per year (CO₂e yr^-1) of the personal footprint derives from travel (1). Let’s take an example to verify and illustrate that. We choose Ireland as host country, which already implies that the vast majority of Erasmus travels (home country/host country) will be airline travels. Now, consider a German student from Koln, coming to Dublin as Erasmus student. If he stays 4 months, doesn’t get any visit and only takes a plane to come and go back at the end of his stay, the carbon cost of his Erasmus experience, in regards to air travels only, is 0.19 tonnes of CO₂e (2). Now, assume he stays in Dublin the entire academic year, and goes back for Christmas and in March to see his girlfriend. She visits him once; his parents come as well, and so does his brother, and two of his closest friends. Overall, his Erasmus adventure will have caused 18 air travels, (9 return trips), resulting in the emission of 1.71 tonnes of CO₂e (assuming all of his friends and family depart from Koln as well). To that, we should add the travels he does the following year to come back and visit his friends still living in Dublin (0.19 t CO₂e), and as he travels to Barcelona to see a friend he met in Dublin (0.22 t). One of his Irish acquaintances also grabs the opportunity to visit Koln during the festival (0.19 t). That will make a total emission of 2.31 tonnes of CO₂e caused by the air travels linked to one Erasmus student – and this doesn’t include embedded costs (construction and maintenance of airports and airplanes, extraction of fuels…). Considering that the Irish mean personal emission is 5.70 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per year, it does represent a considerable amount of greenhouse gases – especially if it can be generalised to all Erasmus students.

Out of 15 Erasmus students studying in Trinity College for the academic year 2012-2013, and randomly picked among personal acquaintances 14 of them had had at least 4 visits from friends and family. They all made the trip home for Christmas, and the majority came back another time during the year. On average, being in a relationship with somebody from home cost 2 extra return trips. They all intended to come back to Dublin for holidays in the future. One of them, from France, had started a relationship with an Erasmus student from Latvia he had met in Ireland. They were looking up the flights and trying to find ways to meet regularly, anticipating for when they would be separated by about 2000 km. When asked what they meant by ‘regularly’, he answered ‘You have to spend some time together at least every two or three months, otherwise there’s no point, it can’t work, you know, you better give it up right away. Three months is already, like, a really long time.’

Of course, the impact on CO₂e emissions will vary greatly depending on the duration of the stay, the closeness of the relationships and individual financial resources. But as a whole, it appears to increase considerably the use of aviation, which is a major component of individual footprint. It can be argued that some of these travels would have occurred anyway, as people grow used to going on vacation abroad. Erasmus students would then draw travels to specific destinations, but not actually cause them. On the other hand, international, uprooted students typically don’t have a car, which diminishes their personal footprint. More generally, we can hope that Erasmus students grow more conscious of global stakes, and that their international contacts and knowledge give them tools to deal adequately with collective issues such as climate change. Yet again, only a fringe of the population is allowed to become internationalised – and is therefore responsible for high emissions of CO₂e due to air travels. Traditionally, internationalisation was reserved for the elite. Now, and thanks to the Erasmus programme so to say, it includes the educated middle-class. Fortunately, most of these ecologically costly international ties are likely to fade away with time, and the impact will thus reduce as years passes. The worst-case scenario in terms of greenhouse gases emissions is then international relationships resulting in lengthy commitments, as they create couples and families built between two countries and heavily relying on air travel. And we ought to hope that such intercultural successes remain scarce.

Marion Lieutaud 

References: 

(1) Kenny, T. and Gray, N.F. (2009), ‘A preliminary survey of household and personal carbon dioxide émissions in Ireland’,  Environment International, 35, 259-272

(2) Calculator Carbon Footprint : http://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx?tab=3

 

A sustainable student life-is it feasible?

TCD Environment Society Community Garden, Dartry

Many students use the excuse of too little money as to why they can’t live more sustainable lives. They probably envisage having to solar panel up their house and pop a wind turbine in the garden, but with a few small changes students can make huge savings and improve their lives. The idea that living sustainably is expensive is a common misconception. By far the cheapest way to eat is by growing your own food, even just a few potato plants will give you more potatoes over the winter than you’ll know what to do with. Buying foods that have been grown locally from a market can also be a lot cheaper than you think. If you normally take the Dart/Bus to college and you switched to cycling you could save at least €700 per college year! Your health would benefit too from gardening and cycling so you could drop the gym subscription and save on the Zumba class. Swopping the tv/laptop for these outdoor activities, layering up during the winter instead of turning the heating on, cooking in bulk (saves time too!) and switching lights off when not in use can have surprisingly big savings on your gas/electricity bills! So make a few small changes and start saving money and enjoying your healthier life today!

 Gwen Duffy