Closet Survey for Climate and Water Health

What’s in your closet?

Where do these clothes come from and where do they go when we outgrow or wear them out?

The Rustbelt Fibershed and Style 412 are asking these questions to clean up our waterways!

Participate in the survey by clicking here.

What is the connection between the clothing I wear and the health of climate and waterways?

A large portion of American’s clothing comes from the fossil carbon pool. This means our clothing is made of plastic-like material, created from petrochemicals. Unfortunately, when we wash our clothing, pieces of our the clothing fiber breaks off and enters into our watersheds. Most of it is unable to be filtered by water treatment centers. This means plastic microfibers from our clothing is ending up in our waterways, polluting the delicate ecosystem, being ingested by aquatic animals, ending up in our drinking water and - ultimately- our bellies.

What impact will this closet survey have?

When we know more about the kinds of clothes our community is wearing, we can work with local and state government to effect change. We want to redesign the systems that get us dressed from soil to skin to sea, and we need to start with a picture of what the system is now.

We’re collecting information about what’s in the closets of the Rust Belt Fibershed region. We will use that information to make maps and infographics of what our community is wearing, where it comes from, and where it goes.

This information will provide details about material content, country of origin, laundry habits, and more, with the goal of creating a healthier regional textile supply chain and keeping microplastic pollution out of our waterways.

Many cities in the Rust Belt Fibershed have a tremendous impact on major bodies of water.

The cities of Pittsburgh and Cincinnati (and the region between) are part of the Mississippi River Basin (the third largest river basin in the world after the Nile and Amazon), which takes in about half of the water that flows through the US. Pollution and toxins flow directly from these cities down to the Mississippi and out to the Gulf of Mexico.

Cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Erie, and Buffalo are located on Lake Erie, which is part of the largest source of freshwater in the world. However, the Great Lakes are threatened by pollution that has come from the manufacturing industries that once thrived here, as well as from our clothing habits today.

What's in your wardrobe? What's happening when you wash it? Where is it going when you are done with it?

Participate in the survey by clicking here.