Help!

My clothing challenge continues and it is a bit of a challenge just now. I have a birthday coming up, just another one -day-older birthday but the kind of one that makes folks sit up and take a bit more notice at the passing of years. (Or is it actually decades? Yikes!) I have been fairly determined to get hooked up with something from one of the fairly traded shops. Well, as with any shopping endeavour it is never at the top of my list of things to do and now with just a few days until my staff night out for the summer, same outfit many uses philosophy, I am in trouble! Of the two stores I can find on line, neither have anything in stock my size. http://www.peopletree.co.uk/ and http://www.nomadsclothing.com/ You see it is that issue of not mass producing. I applaud them but really could they not have something my size that I like? Just one thing. I am away to find more sites. There surely have to be loads out there!

Get this................................ .

In the UK we buy two million tons of clothing each year. 1.2 million tons of which ends up in land fill. That is the equivalent of 200 million full bin bags. I am thinking we maybe do not need to be buying so much.

There are 6000 clothes banks in the UK. 25,ooo tonnes of textiles are donated each year. Of that

• 5% go to charity shop for resell, only the most usable.



• half is sent to developing countries



• damaged clothes are unpicked, sorted into colours to prevent redyeing, and are made into new fibres.



• unwearable clothes are sent to the flocking industry where they are shredded and made into fillers for roofing felt, loudspeakers cones and furniture padding.