There are huge racks of perfectly good jeans in all sizes and styles at consignment stores.

Let go of subtle new styling variations that create demand only for mindlessly discarding clothing year after year.

Stay out of the stream entirely as much as you can.

That is the first thing you can do. Just find a half-dozen fine pairs of pants at a consignment place and construct your wardrobe around them. You can get almost everything you need there.

It's when we stop mindless consuming that we help to change the priorities.

For the joy of clothing, learn to sew. Recyle great fabrics (again, from consignment places).

Make insulated curtains for your home. It'll keep you warmer and be a better use of your craving for textiles.

love,

What kind of a statement is "91 percent of men who work in cotton fields get sick?" Makes me want to move to India and work in the cotton fields so that I'll have a 9% chance of never being ill.

It has been years since I have read of anyone questioning the dyes in use. I have chuckled at the new words used to create the illusion of "safe" dyes. Safe dyes were available in the mid 1990s. A small company in Boulder, CO (later Longmont, CO) manufactured the dyes from plants and bugs, scaled up extraction and dyeing processes using typical commercial equipment with the goal of making it as simple as possible for the textile industry. All was based on solid patents that could not be broken which (the first step in the process of destroying viable technology that is good for the planet.)

One of the biggest obstacles overcome was the development of a commercial process for the use of Indigo (Mother nature's only viable blue)in enclosed commercial dye machines - garment, jet and package dye machines. Without the use of blue a desirable palette is impossible as no matter what "mythical" palette is generated, probably 60% of the colors require blue in the formula. The dyeing was commercialized in large dyehouse in the Southeast US.

A commercial project to package dye yarns, weave sheets and towels was undertaken. Eleven colors were developed, then tested by a large sheet and towel manufacture. It happened - all the colors passed the standard industrial tests of light fastness, wash fastness, dry and wet crocking. You cannot imagine the thrill for this small dedicated team from Colorado.

The industry was thrilled, and then reality hit. I can remember being told more times than I could count that "they" will never allow this to happen. "They" were right that "they" would not allow this to exist - this process with a great palette, shorter process times by half, clean effluent, lower temperatures,non toxic auxillary chemicals, half the water-------

In the middle of it all we went to see the movie the "Insider"

shocked at what we saw, too naive, too full of hope to see that it was about to happen to us.

This was real, we simply were thrilled to ceate an answer to the industry's environmental and worker issues of toxicity. Trust me, the oil industry and the chemical industry control the dye industry and they will go to any lengths to prevent change in the status quo. I seriously doubt the use of plants claimed in your article as that would be Indigo. Indigo dye is magic to me, but a nightmare as it exists historically and currently for commercial processes.

I have wondered how many other technologies that the world so needs exist but have been destroyed one way or another?

Thank you for asking the right questions

Indigored

What the heck are those, Lobelia? Sounds like a euphemism for used clothing places that want to charge high prices. You know, "vintage". I get my jeans from thrift stores, which have whole racks filled with well-worn, perfectly good jeans in all sizes. Since half the attraction of a good pair of jeans is that worn feeling, just buy a pair that someone else has broken in for you! Goodwill, St. Vincent de Paul's, Out of the Closet - all of these are excellent places to find really good jeans. And you won't pay an arm and a leg for 'em, either.

Consignment shops are stores that act as brokers between the sellers and the buyers of used items. Thus the items for sale are not actually being sold by the store owners, but by the original owners. So if I have an old pair of jeans that I want to sell, I take it to the consignment shop, they put it up for sale, and if/when it sells they give me the money (keeping a fee, of course, either a flat fee or a percentage of the sale price). Often if an item doesn't sell after a certain length of time, it is returned to the original owner. They're somewhat like those "Sell your stuff on Ebay" stores, only without the internet.

And while many consignment stores carry high-end items (since those are the types of things people aren't willing to simply give away to Good Will), there are also many places that carry items more like a normal thrift store, jeans and t-shirts for $1-$10. Lower end places like that may just give you cash for your stuff outright rather than actually going through the consignment process, though. But the point is, there's no reason to be obnoxious about Lobelia's suggestion.

When you pick up your $9 "Buddha's Hand" citron. Wanna know what I do? I get a cold salad for lunch at WF and then take the bag to go to Aldi for groceries. $68 for organic jeans? That's precious.

Canada does, many European countries do, but the "land of the free"? Hell no, our leaders are to stupid to figure out the difference between hemp and marijuana (though marijuana should be legal too). Hemp could be a huge part of the solution to so many of the worlds environmental problems.

First of all, people actually spend money to buy "stonewashed" jeans and jeans that have been scrubbed to look used. So why not buy jeans that are, well, you know...used? Many people buy clothes that they regret and forget to return, so you can find a lot of good stuff with the tags still attached in Goodwill as well as consignment places. Many clothes don't get worn much, because kids grow out of jeans, as do adults (ahem). Why let them go to waste just because of delicate sensibilities about someone having worn them? Just toss 'em in the washer. Do it three times if you are spooked.