Visible mending
A new law in MA makes it illegal to throw away textiles. What I'm reading right now. Quick life updates.
“It’s illegal to throw away fabric scraps now, so just put them there in the corner and I’ll figure out what to do with them.”
That’s the first I heard of the new law in Massachusetts, and I honestly just chalked it up to another one of Patrick’s jokes that I just didn’t get, so I chuckled sheepishly and lobbed the small strip of greenish-gold velvet in the direction he was pointing, too embarrassed to admit I didn’t get the punchline.
I was sitting on the painted floor of the prop shop one afternoon in early November, trying to figure out how to cut and place the new fabric just so on my antique chair. I was fighting the good fight, trying to find the happy medium between cutting off too much and having bare spots, or leaving too much and having unsightly bunching. Needless to say, I didn’t give much more thought to cloth crimes.
But then, a couple of weeks later, I started hearing about it everywhere and I was so confused about how Patrick had seemingly gotten all of Berkshire County in on the joke.
Not a joke?
Once it was clear that this was not, in fact, an elaborate ruse, I obviously had to get to the bottom of it.
As it turns out, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law on November 1st, 2022 outlawing the disposal of textiles as part of a larger waste disposal plan. As with a lot of environmental legislation, it was put into action before there was actually much infrastructure to support it. And the options that do exist aren’t necessarily well-advertised. Businesses and individuals are left scrambling to figure out how and where to properly dispose of fabric and textiles.
Now don’t get me wrong, I actually kind of love this new law. Not only is the amount of fabric ending up in landfills absolutely appalling (Thanks, Shein) but also the other big part of the plan requires businesses to reduce food waste by either composting or donating uneaten food, and y’all know how much I love composting.
Education
What I don’t love is that there doesn’t appear to have been any kind of educational campaign before this new law was passed letting people know what the changes would be and what options and resources there were available.
When things like this are handed down without the proper education and support to accompany it, people just end up feeling stress and confusion and frustration which could lead them to oppose future environmental legislation or action just because they don’t want to deal with the stress of figuring it out, even if their rational brain knows that these changes are good and necessary. (The very rocky/totally failed launch of my composting program at Shakespeare & Company is another good illustration of this point, but that’s a story for another newsletter.)
Creative reuse
I’m hopeful that this new law will inspire some new creative reuse businesses and initiatives here in Massachusetts, rather than just exporting bales of old shirts and skinny jeans to developing countries.
There’s actually already a shop in my new hometown of North Adams that has been using this model since they opened in 2017. Wallasauce is a boutique that creates one-of-a-kind, handmade pieces from reclaimed and recycled clothing and fabric. Their style is avant-garde and definitely unique. But I think there will definitely be space in the creative reuse market for more accessible, everyday clothes, quilts, linens, etc as well
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Visible mending
Another thing I’ve serendipitously spent a lot of time researching this year is visible mending. It’s a style of clothes mending (primarily) inspired by the Japanese methods of Sashiko and wabi-sabi.
TL;DR - mending something that is worn or broken doesn’t have to mean trying to make it look brand new, but rather by adding something new and embracing the imperfection you can actually enhance the beauty or interest of a piece while also extending its life.
I was particularly interested in this idea as it relates to furniture, which evidently hasn’t caught on in the same way.
Prior to legislation like what we’re seeing now in Massachusetts, if you had a piece of furniture that was stained or worn out, you just took the old fabric off, tossed it out unceremoniously, and replaced it with new fabric. The idea of mending and patching furniture is something that has evidently been largely looked down upon, at least as it relates to style and decor.
But with the added friction of having to recycle that old upholstery, I wonder if/hope that a cottage industry of refreshing, rejuvenating, and repairing old upholstered furniture might pop up.
Less-than-creative reuse
In the current textile recycling industry, a lot of the cloth that isn’t in good enough condition to be resold is shipped off to be made into…. wait for it… rags.
Yes, really. We are burning money and resources shipping tons of holy undies and stained t-shirts around the world for companies to make them into rags and then ship/sell them back to us.
I realize that it’s weird to have hopes about something as banal and insignificant as rags, but I really do hope that folks catch onto the fact that it’s a lot easier to cut up that old shirt with the pit stains and use it as a cloth for your Swiffer than to bag it up and drive it down the street to the textile recycling collection bin. (Pro tip: waffle-y thermal underwear and the fleecy inside of sweatpants make the best Swiffer rags.)
Reducing textile waste doesn’t have to be all entrepreneurship and high-end artisan sweaters and complicated systems of collections and imports and exports. I’m hoping that laws like this one in Massachusetts make it just inconvenient enough to get rid of old clothes that more people start to consider how they can a) use less to begin with and b) repurpose what they already have.
So what?
I know, I know. This started off like maybe it was going to just be a funny story and ended with me preaching at you about your Swiffer.
Real talk, I am so interested in this whole movement and am really excited to observe the aftermath of this new law in Massachusetts and how everything plays out. I would be straight-up bold-faced lying if I said I hadn’t given some thought to leaving marketing behind in the dust, making another abrupt and incongruous career change, and opening up a furniture repair boutique.
I would totally do it, too, if it weren’t for the whole “the bank would really like for us to pay the stupid mortgage on this new house” thing.
Anyway, thanks for hanging in there while I talk at you about really boring, niche things that I get super hyped up about. Just wait until I get to birds and compost. Hoo buddy, you’re in for a treat.
News & Updates
I got a job!
I got laid off from my job at Till Agency back at the end of October 2022 and have been…. let’s say “underemployed” since then, picking up the occasional shift at Shakespeare & Company or Ventfort Hall while largely relying on Mac to hold us together.
I’m happy to announce that I just accepted a new remote job as an SEO Specialist with a company called FourFront based in Philadelphia, PA. I start next Monday, the 16th, and am so excited to rejoin the world of the gainfully employed. As a person whose feelings of self-worth are tightly wrapped up in my productivity, I can’t really even begin to tell you how hard it was for me to weather even a couple short months of unemployment.
What I’m reading…
I decided to start off the year with something fun, and so far am thoroughly enjoying Stephen Fry’s “Mythos”. It’s an irreverent but still very educational look at the Greek gods and their stories told in a way only Stephen Fry can.
I’m not sure what’s next on my list, so if you have any recommendations for a non-fiction book that you loved, please hit “reply” and let me know.
You can save your recommendations for novels. I pretty exclusively read non-fiction these days because I have a hard time connecting with characters in fiction and it makes me feel like some sort of defective sociopath. But that’s a story for another newsletter.
I hope your January is going well so far, and thanks for following along! -L