To Whom It May Concern;
I am writing to you because I think you can help change the world–in a big way.
(TLDR: It involves endorsing a museum & signing a petition.)
It involves alerting the world to the dangers–the horrors, really–of clothing pollution, and what we can do about it. The good news is that the change required is not complicated, need not hurt the fashion industry, and is already underway. The bad news is attached at the end of this letter.
Here is my story in a nutshell. Inspired by University of Arizona’s “Tucson Garbage Project”, conducted by the revered Dr. William Rathje (PhD, Harvard), I have been studying trash for several decades now. (My credentials below.) Only in the last few years did I start examining in-depth the death cycle of clothing and other cloth goods; quite frankly, it never occurred to me that extremely serviceable used clothing would be thrown away in such vast quantities, with such horrific impact on the environment. Let’s call it “the Garbology of Fashion”.
Where I differ from other “dumpster divers” is that my commitment is such that I have collected and archived this clothing, hundreds of pounds of it, in order to teach the world about the terrifyingly destructive nature of these pollutants, particularly the microplastics involved–and also to show “up close and personal” just how beautiful and useful most of this thrown away clothing really is.
Only recently, with no small sense of triumph, I took it to the next level: planning this for years, I have now purchased a building in New York, with plans to use it to display this garbage in a kind of “trash museum”. Please believe me when I say that these clothes are in great shape, and what a variety: coats, jackets, suits, dresses, sweaters, slacks, shirts, neckties, shoes, baby clothes, even bedding and pillows–the list goes on and on. Two truths leap out at the person viewing these items in the museum: first, that these clothes have a lot of life left in them, and could be put to practical use for years to come, and secondly, these clothes, which were rescued from the trash, could and should be recycled, just as we recycle plastic bottles and stacks of newspapers. According to the EPA, only 13% of all clothing is recycled–as opposed to paper, 70% of which is recycled.
Now here is what I need: brilliant, creative souls to show these clothes off to their best advantage. And you could help me to persuade those brilliant creative souls to jump on board, using your long standing credibility in the world of social media, and the urgent causes it can influence so powerfully. The clothes, some of them even new with tags, are sitting in large black contractor bags in storage. The right touch could show them off for what they really are: beautiful, practical, full of use, and incredibly stylish. These clothes could put any thrift shop to shame. Frankly, with the right touch, these clothes could look like a Macy’s showroom.
And I want Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to be central to this. Yes, I know it is a bit outside of their bailiwick–but seriously, who could do this better? It’s simple, elegant, brilliant, and will save the planet: Queer Eye revamps the allocated floor of the purchased building space, figures out how to be display the clothes (along with the shoes, purses, comforters, pillows, tablecloths, books, greeting cards, office supplies, party decorations, kitchen utensils, toys, and so much more), and I think that the whole thing ends with a grand fashion show! I would like to have that be a lavish and well attended event; I have already gotten positive feedback from the representatives of some high profile persons.
If we can encourage the world to go with sustainable fashion–and dozens of companies are already starting to do that–we can, as I promised, change the world. A crucial key to this is understanding that by breaking down used clothing into its most basic parts (which certain Italian towns, and the town of Paimio, Finland are doing brilliantly), the fibers can be repurposed to make clothing–men’s suits and women’s gowns, for example–that rival anything you would see at Fashion Week, or in the most upscale stores in the world.
But needless to say, getting the busy and brilliant crew from Queer Eye to do this is going to be a huge challenge: I think massive numbers of people showing their support, and their intense desire to see this as a show, will do the trick. (While there are of course other shows that could take on this challenge, I would love to focus on Queer Eye for now.) Important: I am emboldened by the fact that Scout productions, the genius behind Queer Eye, also created the award-winning and groundbreaking 12 part documentary, “Big Ideas for a Small Planet,” a masterful work whose sole purpose is to teach us how to live green and, yes, save the planet.
Attached are some terrifying facts and figures–and a picture of the museum’s new home!
And here is the letter I have sent to Queer Eye: https://www.moviesforyourmind.com/calling-the-queer-eye-fab-5.html
Kicking this off would be simple and practically free: one scout from Scout–the production company that is the mastermind behind Queer Eye–comes to the museum, checks out the clothing collection, and then it’s just thumbs up or down. Thumbs up, and we can start saving the world!
I will grant you this: the further along the museum is, the easier it will be to get support (although these things are never easy, per se.) And yet, I feel that it would be most powerful and persuasive to have a group like Queer Eye to be involved from the beginning; hence they get all the credit for the massive transformation. (Although, in the name of accuracy, this actually began years ago, with the collecting of valuable and reusable clothes.) Frankly, if Queer Eye – whatever entity, such as another home improvement show, ended up taking it on–took it from a pile of black garbage bags on the unfinished floor of an old building on Main Street to, as I said, “a Macy’s showroom”, it would have much more visual and visceral impact to viewers than if the clothes are already on hangars and displayed.
The bottom line is, Queer Eye would be perfect for this. And that goal is so huge to me that it seems unattainable.
You possess far more expertise in these matters than I do–might you have any ideas to offer? I have found that leading with a bullet list offering the horrors and costs of this clothes pollution problem is a good way to start; it grabs attention. Your support of the museum and influence in generating enthusiasm within the Queer Eye crew could change everything; I would be most eager and open to hearing your ideas, opinions, and suggestions.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter.
Sincerely, Meg Langford
B.A.: George Mason University, Virginia
Masters: The American University, Washington D.C., Georgetown
Doctoral Work: University of Maryland
HALL OF FAME: National Forensics Association, April 2010, Meg Langford
WEBSITE: moviesforyourmind.com, moviesforyourmind.net
QUEER EYE LETTER: https://www.moviesforyourmind.com/calling-the-queer-eye-fab-5.html
Last but not least, Twitter contacts for the Queer Eye geniuses. Please, Please consider dropping a Tweet their way, and helping this to go viral. Do it for the vanishing tigers..
https://twitter.com/QueerEye
https://twitter.com/antoni
https://twitter.com/bobbyberk
https://twitter.com/Karamo
https://twitter.com/tanfrance
https://twitter.com/jvn
BEHIND THE SCENES AT SCOUT PRODUCTIONS, the powerhouse behind QUEER EYE:
https://twitter.com/scoutprod
https://twitter.com/DavidDCollins2
https://twitter.com/roberic1
https://twitter.com/EricKorsh
https://twitter.com/JChiodi
---The fashion industry accounts for about 10% of all global carbon emissions--more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.
---The fashion industry accounts for about 20% of the planet’s wastewater. Some of this water cannot even be treated to be made safe again, so toxic are its levels. Much of it ends up in our oceans, since the countries who make this “fast fashion” not only exploit its laborers, but have virtually no pollution regulation.
--The UN estimates that a single pair of jeans requires a kilogram of cotton. And because cotton tends to be grown in dry environments, producing this kilo requires about 7,500–10,000 liters of water. That’s about 10 years’ worth of drinking water for one person.
---Jeans manufacturer Levi Strauss estimates that a pair of its iconic 501 jeans will produce the equivalent of 33.4kg of carbon dioxide equivalent across its entire lifespan – about the same as driving 69 miles in the average US car. Just over a third of those emissions come from the fiber and fabric production, while another 8% is from cutting, sewing and finishing the jeans. Packaging, transport and retail accounts for 16% of the emissions while the remaining 40% is from consumer use – mainly from washing the jeans – and disposal in landfill.
According to the United Nations, some 93 billion cubic meters of water - enough to meet the needs of five million people - is used by the fashion industry annually, and around half a million tons of microfibre, which is the equivalent of 3 million barrels of oil, is now being dumped into the ocean every year.
--Polyester, the most frequently used fiber in the fashion industry, takes 200 years to decompose.
---A single polyester garment can shed over one million microplastics each time it is washed.
---Every year a half a million tons of plastic microfibers are dumped into the ocean, the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles. The danger? Microfibers cannot be extracted from the water and they can spread throughout the food chain.
—Each year, the world throws away about 92 million tons of clothing a year. The U.S. alone throws about about 14 million. With “fast fashion” on the rise, that 92 million is projected to leap to 134 million by 2030.
--According to a report conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in 2013, a whopping 15.13 million tons of textiles ended up in the waste stream (landfills or incinerators). Of that, a mere 15.2 percent was recovered for reuse or recycling. In total, 12.83 tons of textiles--for perspective, the equivalent of more than two million male elephants--ended up in the waste stream in 2013. (And we can assume that the situation hasn't improved in the last decade.)
–If we keep consuming fast fashion at the current rate, greenhouse gases will double in the next decade. Terrifying. You still think you look so damn good?
---Ponder this: there are only about 3500 tigers left in the wild. A century ago, there were 80,000. The finest minds and most august foundations in the world agree that pollution like that caused by the current fashion industry will be directly responsible for the disappearance of tigers from the planet. Experts in the field all sadly agree: tigers will be extinct within 10-20 years. And that is just one species. There are virtually an infinite number in jeopardy. There is a direct correlation between clothing pollution, climate change, and the coming extinction of the tiger--just one of many, many beautiful species we are slated to wipe out.
HERE IS SOMETHING EMPOWERING TO CONSIDER: Youth smoking has dropped from a high of 36.4 percent in 1970, to a mere 2.3 percent today. It is no longer “cool” to smoke. If these young people rejected non-sustainable clothing, and condemned current practices, it could be the kids of the world, who change the world. Makes sense. They are the ones who will have to live in it. We pretty much f’d it up, after all…..
MORE HORRIFYING STATISTICS: https://woollygreen.com/fashion-industry-waste-statistics/
AND PICTURES HERE: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/great-pacific-garbage-patch-plastics-environment