Reuse, Reduce, Recycle

When we upcycle an old sail we try to use as much of the fabric as possible… so once we have cut as many large items as the sail will allow we use the smaller pieces for single bottle bags, doorstops & finally sunglass cases.  Inevitably there are pieces of cloth that end up going into our green sacks for trash collection with the final destination being incinerator or landfill.  We have contacted several organisations to see if there is any recycling facilities for sailcloth but have had no luck to date.
 
But hoping to address the issue is the latest programme from the Ellen MacAthur Foundation – the Circular Fibres Initiative was created in May 2017 & outlines plans for a circular economy for textiles starting with clothing.  The Foundation’s report – A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion’s future was launched in London last November by Ellen MacArthur and Stella McCartney.  People are aware of the damage that plastic pollution & plastic microparticles does to our oceans, the harm this causes to sea life (& potentially us as it enters the food chain) but microfibres from clothes is potentially just as damaging.
Let’s hope this is the start of rethinking another aspect of how we live.