“What can you do to reduce your wardrobe’s impact on the planet”

Crazy to think that our clothes might contribute as much as 8 – 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions, more than aviation and shipping combined. Textiles rely heavily on petrochemical products that are oil and gas derivatives. Polyester has overtaken cotton “as the backbone of textile production.” The World Bank suggests that global clothing sales could increase by 65% by 2030.

Our global society is consuming more clothing than ever, partly due to fast fashion. Worse yet: Much new product and nearly all used product goes to landfills or is incinerated. British shoppers apparently buy more than any other European country… perhaps influenced more by fast fashion. A BBC article queries readers: “What can you do to reduce your wardrobe’s impact on the planet?” The article found that in England, shoppers in the 16 – 24 year-old age range buy clothes online at least once a week.

Most of the impact is related to raw materials: Like 2.5% of the world’s farmland being dedicated to cotton, and 342 million barrels of oil used each year to make polyester. The production of clothes requires 43 million tons of chemicals a year…and major amounts of water, literally thousands of gallons per pair of jeans.

Fast fashion is a term that describes the quick turnover of fashion trends and the move towards cheap, mass-produced clothing. New lines are constantly released and purchased, and wardrobes are overflowing with clothes. Oxfam research suggests that the average Brit has 57 unworn items.

Textiles are the second largest product group made from petrochemical plastics, just behind packaging. Textiles are made of 15% of all petrochemical products. Polyester and nylon ended hundreds of years of cotton’s dominance. The global market for polyester yarn is expected to grow from $106 billion to $175 billion by 2023, a level representing some 92 million tons a year. And the growth has come at major cost. In 2015, polyester production caused the emissions of 282 billion tones of carbon dioxide, triple that of cotton.

Another cost relates to microplastics. Bloomberg NEF reports that clothing made of synthetic fibers is a prime source of microplastic pollution that is especially harmful to marine life. These materials shed plastic particles with every wash and wear. Fully 35% of all the microplastics in the ocean are traced back to textiles. They are the largest source of microplastics today.

Why is polyester – plastic clothing – so appealing? It is good and hardy. It is versatile and can be fashioned into anything from faux furs to silky dresses and athletic clothes and Gucci skirts. Lots of current clothing is made of textiles that are blends of fibers from polyester, nylon, acrylic, and elastane. This makes these textiles impossible to recycle.

The amount of clothing has ballooned. The U.S. EPA finds that clothing and footwear waste generated by Americans each year rose from 1.4 million tons in 1960, to over 13 million tons in 2018. At least 70% of this ended up in landfills. Often the pace of apparel production exceeds demand, resulting in unsold inventory, overproduction creating a glut of inventory. In one noted case in 2017, a Swedish power plant reportedly “burned mountains of discarded clothing.”

So what are the solutions? They are, in a word, nascent, but important. The United Nations has launched an initiative “the#ActNowFashion Challenge. There is a small but growing movement toward sustainability and ecologically grown cotton. One brand collects and recycles underwear. One of EcoMotion’s podcasts features sloFashion. Some forms of polyester are now made from bioplastics, using natural polymers. Some companies like Patagonia, are working toward sustainability in the textile area. There are a cadre of companies working to take waste textiles and to repurpose them, recovering and processing materials to make new yarn, others are working to produce recycled clothing from discarded clothing.

Seaweed, technically “macroalgae,” refers to thousands of species of multicellular, marine algae. It comes in red, brown, and green. One species, kelp (laminaria, provides essential habitat for fisheries; planktonic algae plays a vital role in capturing carbon and producing half of the world’s oxygen. Seaweed is also eaten. The Food and Agriculture Organization reports that world production of seaweed for food in 2019 was over 35 million tons, with 58% produced in China, followed by Indonesia, South Korea, and the Philippines.

Kelp is in focus. It is a carbon negative crop. It has huge potential for climate change mitigation. One study determined that covering 9% of the world’s oceans with kelp forests could provide enough bio-methane to replace all of today’s needs for fossil fuel energy, removing 53 billion tons of CO2 per year and restoring preindustrial levels.

Seaweed is abundant in our oceans, growing at extraordinary rates in salt water while sequestering CO2. It is high in iron, calcium, iodine, vitamins A, C, E, B12… and more. As such, it has been a diet staple in Asia since prehistoric times. It’s loaded with essential substances like trace elements, amino acids, minerals, antioxidants, and vitamins. Humans have harvested it for thousands of years. It has been used for medicine, food, fertilizer, fuel, skincare, and more. In Ancient Rome it was used to dress wounds. Today seaweed is even being used to make bio-based skis.

In World War 1, manufacturers experimented with different materials to fortify fabric for soldiers. In the 1600s. Japanese textile makers began to experiment and use seaweed fabric also to fortify clothing. Today seaweed clothing is an alternative to fossil fuel-based polyester and nylon, which together make up 60% of all clothes.

Kelp fabric is not purely seaweed. It is made of two sustainable parts: tree cellulose and kelp. It is made by spinning natural cellulose from beech or eucalyptus trees and seaweed together, creating a soft, stretchy, durable fabric yarn that is used to weave fabrics. The resulting material is biodegradable, absorbent, soft, and breathable. It’s an alternative to cotton and wool.

One Seaweed fabric supplier is SeaCell. Its product is 81% lyocell and 19% seaweed. It has been used by Lululemon in some of its yoga clothes for nearly two decades. It is now also being used for bedding and towels. It’s also making its way into mattresses. Seaweed has the potential to replace plastics. Not just for clothing, but for things like plastic bags and film alternatives.

There are other benefits of using seaweed. The SeaCell product is smoother and silkier than wool or cotton. It features breathability, moisture wicking, durability, and high levels of sun protection. Of course, seaweed requires no freshwater, in stark contrast to cotton. A single cotton t-shirt can require hundreds of gallons of water in its production.

Lululemon advertised its use of seaweed-based products, but got caught with unsubstantiated claims of it being anti-inflammatory and having anti-bacterial properties. Lululemon still carries the fabric in a line of its clothing, but without the medicinal claims. It now focuses on comfort and breathability. The New York Times calls seaweed “an increasingly common sustainable, regenerative, natural product.” Demand for fabric made from seaweed is reportedly “off the charts.”

It’s in South Korea, in the median of a busy highway… a 20-mile long bike path covered by a canopy of solar panels. The highway and bikeway run between Daejon and Sejong, the latter being the administrative capital of South Korea. The continuous canopy of panels shields cyclists from the  sun while generating power for highway signage and area lighting. Some simply call it a roof on top of a bike road.

It isn’t the first solar bike path. The Netherlands Sola-Road employs a design in which bicyclists ride on top of solar panels. In South Korea they ride beneath them.

The South Korean system is accessed through subterranean tunnels that allow cyclists to enter and exit the bike path. Barriers protect riders from three lanes of traffic on either side. Naturally concerns over air quality from ICE car fumes will subside as EVs gain popularity and use.

Image Courtesy of Voltpost

Double duty. Instead of just providing light, what if streetlights could also provide EV changing stations? The power is there and highly efficient LEDs have freed up capacity for charging. Enter the streetlight-mounted charger by startup Voltpost. After small pilots in New York and Detroit… tough place to build EV stations… its modular street-proofed system is commercially available.

Voltpost and others are addressing fundamental urban EV realities. It is uncommon for city dwellers to have their own driveway or garage where they can charge an EV. So consumers will want street parking and street charging. Cities have underground power grids, adding to installation costs. It’s expensive and challenging to install new chargers in urban environments, cutting trenches into streets, curbs, and sidewalks.

It’s hard enough to find parking, and inconceivable to easily find parking and EV charging. But streetlights and lampposts are everywhere. Why not meld this supply of locations, with growing demand?

Voltpost has put a lot of time and energy into “protecting its systems from bad actors.” Its power electronics and control systems are contained within a protective aluminum outer casing that completely surrounds the light post. Voltoost uses a 20-foot retractable charging cable mounted 8-feet off the ground, only a short length of which is exposed to vandals or thieves.

In Europe, Ubitricity has installed thousands of lightpost-mounted chargers. In Los Angeles, there are 600 lightpost-mounted chargers that have been installed since 2022, chargers provided by Flo, ChargePoint, and Shell Recharge.

Image Courtesy of Zum

Just days ago, Oakland, California was proud to report that its school district is the first in the country to have an all-electric school bus fleet. Thanks to collaboration between the Oakland Unified School District and Zum, a student transportation company, all 74 of the District’s buses are fully electric. The buses will also be providing energy to the City and utility when not in use, partnering and providing Pacific Gas and Electric Company with 2.7 MW of VGI (Vehicle Grid Integrated) capacity from Zum’s bus facility in Oakland.

Many families in Oakland are disadvantaged and affected by high rates of asthma and exposure to air pollution from diesel fuels. Cleaner student transportation is considered a game changer, providing greater equity and affording students from disadvantaged neighborhoods with freedom from bus emissions and thus greater health, the backbone of a stronger chance of success in the classroom.

Zum notes that moving students is equivalent to the largest mass transit system in the nation, U.S. buses transport 27 million students twice daily. Over 90% of the nation’s ~500,000 school buses run on carbon-based fuels, releasing over 8.4 million tons of greenhouse gases annually. Zum’s goal is to electrify 10,000 school buses and to supply up to one million kWh to the grids annually.

It’s called the “City of Superchargers.” It’s BYD’s hometown. Shenzhen is China’s third largest city after Shanghai and Beijing. And now its EV charging network has surpassed gas stations, the number of ultra fast DC chargers there exceeds the number of gas stations. Shenzhen now has 362 super charging stations. And one of those, a Shell/BYD project near the airport, has 258 charging dispensers.

For the past several years, Shenzhen has experienced a 10% year-after-year increase in charging infrastructure and access. The government has supported the transition, expanding the number of NEVs in the City (“new energy vehicles”) to 970,000 units in December 2023, now approximately 60% of the automotive market.

Less than seven years since the world’s first large battery was installed in Australia in 2016, the Tesla “big battery” at Hornsdale, the capacity of battery storage is expected to soon overtake that of pumped storage hydro facilities worldwide. The milestone is expected to occur in 2025, while batteries have been derided as immature technology. They’ve come a long way in a short time.

In 2020, there was a total capacity of 18 GW of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), versus 160 GW of Pumped Hydro Energy Storage (PHES). Fully 90% of the total was PHES. But by 2024 the PHES share had shrunk to 56%… with 157 GW of BESS and 197 GW of PHES. In 2025, and given exponential growth of BESS, one noted that, “the balance tips forever.” Batteries are becoming a significant factor on the power grids of today. BESS technology is arguably just as mature and as bankable an asset class as PHES which has been the gold standard for investors.

Capacity is one thing, storage duration is another. Most battery systems in Australia have only 1 – 2 hours of storage, reflecting their investors’ focus on selling grid services such as frequency control and system security. Now there are more four-hour systems, and more and more eight-hour battery to capture and shift solar and wind power for later use.

Use the links below to check out our recent podcasts. And you can always go to Spotify and type in “Ted Flanigan” to find our library of podcasts.

Recently Released:

• This issue of EcoNet News, Volume 25, Issue #5

In EcoNet News, Volume 26, Issue #5, Ted shares his highlights from his trip to the land of enchantment, Sante Fe, New Mexico, to visit his daughter Sierra who is living there. He also highlights the global clothing glut, seaweed clothing, South Korea’s solar bike path, streetlight-mounted EV chargers, the first school district in the country in Oakland, CA to have an all-electric school bus fleet, Shenzhen’s EV charging network surpassing gas stations, and batteries becoming the largest form of grid-scale storage.

• Greg Kats on Improving Urban Livability

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Greg Kats, Founder and CEO of the Smart Surfaces Coalition, a non-profit organization promoting the adoption of urban “smart surfaces” to improve urban livability. He is also a businessman, environmentalist, played substantial roles in developing the clean energy and green building industries, and is a long-time thought leader and investor in the transition to a low carbon economy.

Greg played a large role in designing and developing LEED, the green building standard, and was hired by the World Bank to guide the creation of a new World Bank green building design standard. He was later hired by the Enterprise community partners to guide development of the first and still leading green design standard focused on low income housing, called Green Communities. Ted highlights Greg being the Founding Chairman of the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP), who built the Protocol into the global energy and water efficiency design and verification standard used in over $100 billion in building upgrades.

He founded the Smart Surfaces Coalition in 2019 to slow global warming, redress social inequity, and build urban resilience. It is a powerful collection of 40 leading organizations in urban health, sustainability, equity, architecture, energy, water, and urban policy dedicated to the adoption of “smart surfaces,” a set of technologies that allow cities to better manage sun and rain, save money, and create more livable communities. Smart surface solutions include a strategic combination of reflective roofs and pavements, porous pavements, green roofs, solar photovoltaics (PV), and trees, enabling cities to lower their temperatures despite global warming, as well as create increasingly resilient and livable infrastructure.

• Jack Groh on Greening NFL Events and Sports Sustainability

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Jack Groh, Director of Environmental Programs for the National Football League (NFL). He is also the Senior Vice President of Strategy for Legacy Sustainability, an independent consultancy that he and his wife, Susan Groh manage to develop and implement climate mitigation and adaptation strategies around major sporting events.

Jack and Susan have been minimizing the environmental impacts of major sports events for 30 years, including the NFL’s major special events. They are widely recognized for the unique and impactful community projects they develop and have consulted on sustainable transportation development, municipal waste diversion, building sustainability, and renewable energy.

Based in Warwick, Rhode Island, Jack and Susan have been at the forefront of making the NFL and other organizations more environmentally conscious. In 1993, they developed the first environmental initiatives ever implemented at any professional sports league in the United States at Super Bowl XXVIII in Atlanta, Georgia. Their journey began with simple recycling projects during the Super Bowl and evolved into making the game the greenest professional championship in the world. Their efforts extend beyond visible actions, including recycling, food recovery and material repurposing, to making a substantial difference in the environmental and community impact of large events.

Through their independent consulting efforts at Legacy Sustainability, they aim to leave each community better than they found it and inspire others to do the same. Some of the green legacy programs they leave behind in every community include planting trees, creating pollinator gardens, habitat restoration, equipment donations and school supply programs, recycling and composting, taking excess food and drink off to local food banks, and using renewable energy and helping organizations get renewable energy certificates. Jack highlights the Miami Coral Reef Project, Super Kids Super Sharing event, and the NFL Green Super Bowl LVIII Program launch.

• Ingrid Malmgren on the Transition to Electrified Transportation

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Ingrid Malmgen, Senior Policy Director at Plug in America, a nonprofit organization with a mission to accelerate the transition to affordable and accessible plug-in vehicles and charging through education, advocacy, and research. Ingrid has over a decade of experience advancing sustainable energy and transportation electrification through research, utility regulatory proceedings, and legislative advocacy.

She shares her story of landing in the EV space through her works with energy efficiency and utilities. She found herself running cost benefit analyses of EVs, studying the impact on the grid, cost savings to consumers and drivers, impacts on public health, and social cost of carbon.

She and Ted discuss the broader societal benefits of EVs, the history and genesis of Plug in America, and how EVs are a critical component to a sustainable and equitable energy future. Ingrid also shares a broadened view of vehicle grid integration, and her excitement to continue fighting for policy change at Plug In America.

• Beth Pratt on Coexisting with Wildlife in Urban Spaces

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Beth Pratt, the Regional Executive Director of the California Regional Center of the National Wildlife Federation. She is a lifelong advocate for wildlife, and has worked in environmental leadership roles for over twenty-five years. She has also spearheaded the #SaveLACougars campaign to collaborate, fund, and build the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, the largest crossing in North America—and potentially the world—to help save a population of mountain lions from extinction. The initiative has raised a half a billion dollars in private funding to advance wildlife crossings across California and the country.

Before joining the Federation in 2011, she worked on sustainability, green building, and climate change programs for Xanterra Parks & Resorts in Yellowstone as its Director of Sustainability. Under her leadership, Yellowstone’s environmental programs received environmental achievement awards from the National Park Service three years in a row. Prior to her role in Yellowstone, she served as the Vice President/CFO for the non-profit Yosemite Association (now Yosemite Conservancy) in Yosemite National Park.

Although most of her career has been spent in national parks, she shares that her main conservation priority is now focused on urban wildlife conservation and creating coexistence strategies within urban spaces. She believes that the future of conservation is about the integral link between wildlife and people – and cities are vital to forging those links.