Ably Sustainable Clothing Dresses Down Global Warming

Innovative fashionistas are seriously looking at the garment industry's role in environmental pollution and climate change. A new Seattle-based apparel company, named Ably, is driven by the idea that what we wear shouldn’t hurt the planet.

This is not a niche issue. The apparel industry accounts for over 10% of global carbon emissions and remains the second largest industrial polluter, topped only by the petroleum industry.

About four million people are employed in the U.S. fashion industry in total. The average household in America spent almost $2,000 last year on apparel and footwear, giving us quite a carbon footprint.

This shouldn’t be surprising since clothing is a $3 trillion global industry. And it will keep growing.

The population on Earth is growing to 10 billion people by mid-century and everyone needs clothes.

Presently, the United States is the largest importer of garments in the world. And nearly 40% of apparel products sold in the United States are imported from China. According to the  Environmental Protection Agency, 13.1 million tons of textiles are trashed each year in the United States, but only 15% are donated or recycled. 

Washing and drying a load of laundry every two days produces roughly 970 pounds of CO₂ per year. If you multiply that number by all of the people in the world doing laundry, then you’re left with billions of tons of carbon dioxide emitted to the world’s atmosphere every year.

Ably thinks we can cut that in half.

The basis for Ably’s eco-friendly clothing line is a patent-pending technology called Filium that activates its 100% all-natural cotton. Filium is a process that makes natural fabrics like cotton, wool and silk repel liquids without affecting how soft and breathable they are. This makes Ably apparel incredibly stain and odor resistant, which means clothes stay cleaner and smell fresh for weeks on end.

Yes - you don’t have to wash your clothes for weeks.

“We created Ably and Filium to combat a major problem in our world, pollution,” said Raj Shah, co-founder of Ably and co-creator of Filium. “We know that it’s going to take a lot of change in the industry to slow or reverse the effects of climate change. With that said, if we can arm consumers with the ability to choose to wear high-quality clothing that is long-lasted and sustainably made, then we’re moving in the right direction.” 

I saw one person who wore the same Ably shirt for weeks on end and it still wore and smelled great. He even dumped salsa on it and it just wiped off perfectly.

This is very important since the average cotton garment has an average life of about 40 washes. So this new material will increase its lifespan at least ten times. Washing in cold water extends the life even more.

Ably clothes also hang dry really fast  so you don’t have to use the drier either, saving more electricity and extending the cloth’s life even further.

So less loads of laundry means less carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, less water and electricity usage, and less effluents that are released into our lakes, rivers, oceans and streams.

Filium is completely safe and doesn’t use nanoparticles or harmful chemicals that can break down and leach into your skin or the environment, making it a breakthrough that could have a huge impact on the planet by reducing waste and wash cycles.

Dyeing, printing and bleaching textiles and chemicals amounts of energyinvolve hugealong the entire manufacturing line. In fact, a quarter of all chemicals produced in the world are used in textiles. China produces 53% of the world's textiles, and discharges about 40% of all dyeing chemicals worldwide.

Other liquid-repelling fabrics are made with petroleum-based synthetic materials, like nylon and polyester, which just uses more petroleum and energy, so having a cotton with the same characteristic is an even better way to reduce your carbon footprint.