Circular Wear, sharing is the future and the future is now!

“CW – Circular Wear started as a personal choice. For several years I haven’t bought new clothes, and organized dinners with friends since my teenage years in order to swap. It made sense to me that the items I didn’t want anymore would be great and new to my friends. As so theirs to me. 

I believe it is also many people´s choice, thankfully.

At the same time, the second hand charity shops were always my first choice. I figured: the perfect model it is, to get clothes for a low price, that don’t support mass production and mass consumption, and that at the same time, help an organization with a social / environmental project. 

But the more one digs into it, the more one realizes that the fashion industry is actually the second more polluting in the world. So the more and more one feels driven to share this concept and to try getting everyone on board so that, together, we can achieve a better model in what regards this industry, and reduce the pollution and waste caused by it. Or at least do our best.

So this behaviour of swapping and sharing that me and my friends had while having fun and socializing was something worth spreading so that everyone could contribute to a footprint reduction by decreasing our consumption, make our clothes last, and connect with like minded people. As soon as I started connecting to some inspiring souls with the goal of expanding the project, a great team was born, full of people with the same mind-set. CW is now everyone´s project.

So what do we believe makes a difference? To be part of a sharing and swapping community. 

Therefore we have implemented a very simple format allowing everyone to get “new” clothes from our neighbour: the SWAP SPOTs. These are clothes racks spread between 5 cities so far, where we can all leave something we don’t wear anymore, and take something we love. Free and always available. Complementing these, we have also created the online sharing and swapping groups on facebook called Swap Spots which are also with the city locations, like for example Swap Spot Porto (search for your city and get in touch if you can’t find it as we can create one in partnership with you or your project).

All existing fabrics, clothes, are already enough for some centuries, we don’t need to produce from raw, we just need to re-invent this production. From clothes to clothes, in a non-polluting and wasteful system. CW believes this will be possible soon – the circular system will be implemented and will be the core of the fashion industry. This is what we believe the path is. 

In the meantime let’s extend the life of what we already have, reduce our consumption, along with our waste and pollution footprint, refuse buying what is not sustainable. This way we pressure the industry to take action as quickly as possible, and with our individual actions and behaviour change, the world can change too! 

And this was also the motivation that led Impact House to be one of the Lisbon pioneers of the SWAP SPOTs: to be part of the change and to contribute to this reduction of waste and pollution. Partnering up since the beginning, together we bring awareness and empower the community to be able to buy less. 

You want to help reduce waste and pollution in what you wear? This is some of what you can do:

  • Create a SWAP SPOT wherever you are
  • Contact us if you want us to set-up a SWAP SPOT
  • Partner up to admin a Swap Spot facebook group of a city
  • Share information 
  • Swap and share what you have
  • If you really need to buy new, look for sustainable and circular brands

 

Did you know that:

  • In Portugal there are over 80.000 kg of textile waste a year and only 10% is recycled (LabFresh for EuroNews).
  • Increasing the active life of all clothing by nine months would reduce the annual carbon, water and waste footprints of UK clothing by 20-30% each, and cut resource costs by £5 billion (WRAP UK).
  • The global warming potential (GWP) of a cotton t-shirt production is 4.3Kg of CO2 equivalent (Sustainable Apparel Materials).”

 

By Rita Gomes, sharing hero at CW 

“Second hand is not because we can’t afford new clothes, but because we can’t afford a new planet” – Circular Wear