Zero Waste Sneaker

Lisa Deurer             

 

 

The Zero Waste Sneaker

Fashion ecology & Sustainability

Parsons, The New School

BFA Fashion

 

Today, an average American consumes 400% more clothing than he did 20 years ago, which is mainly due to fast and cheap fashion as we in see stores like H&M, Mango, and Gap (Coles, 2016, pp.136). On a yearly basis, the average American throws away around 82 pounds, which sums up to an average of 11 million tons a year of textile waste for the entire country (Morgan, 2015). Non-degradable textile waste such as jeans, zippers, buttons, rubber, and plastics (found in polyester, PVC, and Viscose) are not recyclable or decomposable causing severe environmental pollution that puts the health of our planet and our future generations at risk (Morgan, 2015). Although Parley, an Adidas brand, is already recycling plastics from the ocean to produce shoes and garments out of plastic fibers, their material is still pollutant and not environmentally friendly. We still live in a world where clothes, shoes, and cars resembled out of materials that can be used once to be then thrown away and never used again. We do not find material parts in nature. Nature grows its materials in a way where it varies material properties but not its composition (Oxman, 2015). Buying recycled clothing instead of new clothes, repair or change old clothing silhouettes to new ones would help to cut down consumption rates, but doesn’t solve the problem. In other words, “Fashion has a pollution problem but what if biology can fix it (Chieza, 2017)?”

 

Combining digital fabrication technologies with natural and synthetic biology is essential to revolutionize the fashion industry to become more sustainable, where zero waste garments will reduce the consumption of plastic fibers (like PVC, polyester). I will focus my essay on combining digital fabrication technologies (in the form of 3D printing) with natural biology (regarding growing and creating with nature) and synthetic biology which will change the way we think, design and consume fashion in future.

 

Researching and listening to Designers like Natsai Audrey Chieza, Suzanne Lee and designer & architect Neri Oxman, whom all believe that biology is the future for fashion, astronaut gear, furniture, and housing. All three designers agree that bacteria and protein fibers can help us to grow these new materials. For designer Natsai it was the bacteria Streptomyces coelicolor that enabled her to make striking pigments that helped her dye clothing that is non- toxic and uses less water. Designer Lee used bacteria in the air to help her Kombucha-sugar mixture to grow vegetable leather. Last but not least, designer and architect Oxman uses biotechnology, 3D printers, and silkworms to produce chitosan paste and protein fibers to manufacture clothing. Biotechnology can be a new alternative to create more sustainable clothing in the future, though we have to consider the ethical/moral issues and resource shortages new technologies would cause. The question is, who will contribute and challenge these ideas, where we experiment and create with nature to design materials which are significantly and delicately put together to minimize consumption?

 

Currently, Parley is featuring sneakers and garments made out of recycled ocean plastic to minimize plastic pollutants in marine sea life. At this moment, they aim to slow down consumption and contaminants of plastics that are petroleum based (petroleum is made out of fossil fuels, polluting the air with CO2). Suggesting that Parley shoe garments are still polluting the environment after the “recycled” plastic fibers, which are not biodegradable, are thrown out. Recently, Neri Oxman and her team experimented with “Chitin,” found in shrimp seashells, to 3D print a structure that can be used to create garments that are fully decomposable.  Chitin fibers can even nourish marine sea live and help grow a tree when planted in the soil (Oxman, 2015). Likewise, Oxman and her team asked themselves “what if they can design something that augments living matter,” which plays on the idea using and working with nature to learn and genetically engineer similar properties that act and manipulate materials like the spider and the silkworm silk (Oxman, 2015). Through collaboration with biologists, chemist and product designers, Oxman and her team noticed that raw fiber from a spider and a silkworm is tangible enough to meet the demands of a garment fiber. Two years ago, Oxman and her team experimented with silk from silkworm fibers to grow meshes for given forms they placed the silkworms on. Now, silk from silkworm cocoon’s is used to create a fiber meshes for garments and products.  While doing this experiment, they found out that when varying the concentration and properties of the protein found in the silk fiber structures can be grown/engineered to be tangible and resistant enough to grow the fiber in any form and shape of the design. Taking this further, what if we can grow or 3D print a shoe sole out of silkworm fibers, which is nothing else than proteins spun together to build a thicker structure. Although resources are finite and the technology is fairly new and still in the experimentation phase, we need to find a way how to scale biology in combination with technology to produce in higher demand than in the parish or in the aquarium where silkworms spin on top of these forms we place them on. Oxman is optimistic that biotechnologies such as spider silk and silkworm silk that will help us with further research to transition to biodegradable materials in fashion, which are healthier for the environment than plastics. Start-up companies like “Bolt thread” and “Faber Future” in Massachusetts are experimenting with growing fibers out of spider silk (similar to silkworm silk) which they use to weave and fabricated clothes. This technology could be used to create a mesh for a shoe which would be 100% biodegradable and zero waste for the environment. The collaboration between Neri Oxman and Iris Van Herpen (elite fashion designer) proved that digital technologies combined with synthetic biology could be used to create a 3D printed dress without seams which Van Herpen presented at her 2013 fashion show in Paris. What if we extend these technologies and print with silk from silkworms, which will introduce us to new zero waste technologies? Thereby we could further expand our resource productions to transition to biodegradable materials like spider silk in fashion and reduce plastics that pollute all our industries.

 

Oxman’s research on digital fabrication in combination with natural and synthetic biology have shown promising technologies which could change how designers create, make and design fashion in the future. On the other hand, it raises critical ethical and philosophical issues, about nature, humanness, and ecology. Likewise, it is important to note that colleges critically commented my presentation about zero waste technologies in the fashion industry to use new forms of knowing and development in a thoughtful, genuinely manner that doesn’t consume harassingly. Dennis Hollinger, a Ph.D. President and Professor of Christian Ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological, defines “biotechnologies as a set of technologies aimed to manipulate living things” (Hollinger, 2013), meaning that he makes a clear distinction between the natural biology and synthetic biology, which always have been valuable traits of our humanness. Meaning that with technologies humans get empowered to take control over our lives that reach beyond humanness and beyond reality. Saying that these technologies tend to control us, to drive for more and use them beyond “common good” (Hollinger, 2013). Although biotechnologies are an invention to provoke goodwill, scientists and designers could manipulate the technology to use it for gene coding. Gene coding could be used in humans “to make ourselves fit better or live in a better world we live in now” (Hollinger, 2013). Hence why Hollinger is right that we need some criteria or a law regulation to make sure we use the technology thoughtfully and for the common good, which prohibits mass production and alteration of genes that define species existence (species regarding animals, vegetation, and humans). On the other hand, genetic traits of species can be studied to artificially reproduce fibers and products that help us biodegrade and recycle waste which isn’t pollutant/harmful to the environment. Nevertheless, it all comes down to our responsibilities we have as an artist and designers to raise our voices and question our art-making process so that we always create in goodwill to heal for good. Saying that we cannot consume new technologies as we did in the past with fast fashion clothes, we cannot run a 12-seasoned fashion industry anymore, we cannot sell clothes for less than 10$ and we cannot continue to brand and set trends as fast and mind bubbling as we did in the past. It all boils down to change behavioral manners, education and the willingness to work hard for good. Since 2014/15 we have the technology and the knowledge to transform fashion into a sustainable industry, but we still lack education in this new field of knowledge that will help us to ethically question our work, create with limits and create to provoke goodwill. Therefore, I can recommend that implementing these new pieces of knowledge in educational classrooms, ted talks, fashion fairs, and shows, daily conversations we have with friends, family, and strangers to raise awareness and to hopefully transition away from plastic into something new that is biodegradable.

 

Combining the sciences with the art in educational, research-based, and studio’s based environments are essential to learn, experiment and grow experiences that will help us to implement zero-waste technologies into our behavior, our routines, and designs. We should aim to educate and change the behaviors of Artists, Designers, Biologists, Chemist’s, Politian’s, Businessman’s, Salesmen’s, School teachers, Students, Family, and Shoppers to consume with need. Hence why educational environments have the responsibility to educate the future generations about these new technologies and the behavior we need to be able to use these technologies in a meaningful manner. Saying that we need to bring craftsmanship courses, such as sawing, sculpturing, drawing, woodshop classes such as wire and paper theories back into the school environments because the real experience tells us how we treat, manipulate and value materials so that we use it wisely. Personally, the Parsons community has to thank the faculty to enrich our education by implementing Space & Materiality into our first-year studies in Parsons which changed the way how we think, treat, value and use materials such as wire, wood, and fabric in a more meaningful way then we have before. Here we learn to create with purpose, and that is true for how we treat food and consume fashion. Meanwhile, we the students and the artists & designers of the future should also be open to inviting seniors and people who are not part of the fashion world to be part of this conversation about less is more and more is waste. Let’s start to build communities where we share this knowledge, teach/ exchange old but valuable craftsmanship techniques such as felting, smocking, and knitting, that benefited our grandparent’s lifestyle which was sustainable and healthy regarding looking after the environment. The lifestyle of our grandparent’s plastic did not exist, because their life was centered around basic needs, looking after the family and consuming locally. That is why we need a to make sure that we consume more natural products than domestic ones to value and support homegrown businesses. Additionally, we should make sure that technology does not control how we eat, behave, dress and live in future. Let the technology be an enrichment to explore more resources and a tool to be used superiorly.

 

A way to take action would be to introduce zero-waste technologies into our daily routines. Incorporating and experimenting with these new technologies is vital so that the designer of the future can use these technologies for their design processes and thinking, which will help them to solve the problem of fashion pollution in future.  On my behalf, I ordered 25 silkworms for eight dollars to test whether the silk that the worms will spin can be used to create a mesh for a wire modeled shoe.  This design intends to produce decomposable footwear that can nourish the soil with nutrients when thrown away. These new scientific technologies will bring with them new collaborations and criticisms which will help us in finding new sustainable resources that will reduce the consumption rates on plastics. Let’s talk with our taxi drivers, with our Starbucks baristas and our friends about these issues and its possibilities to raise awareness and make our voices heard of transitioning from the age of plastic to a new age of biology fixing our pollution problem in the fashion industry. Companies like Bolt threads, Bionic Yarn, Parley are all new start-up companies that work on recycling and inventing new protein fibers that help us with cutting back on environmental pollution with consumption of clothes. In other words, the technology is already out there, it is for us to open up these resources in the production methods we use to create the skin we wear.  Personally, I pledge for a fully decomposable sneaker, which should prove to society how prosperous and vital the biotechnology is in the future for the fashion industry. We sit at the hot spot of students, faculty, resources, and imagination to create the yet unknown tomorrow. The tomorrow where the Tishman Center, the faculty, students, and collaborators can network and create clothes and sneakers made out of proteins fibers and bacteria symbiosis.

 

The New School Community and the Tishman Environment Center would be an excellent bridging point, where we can explore together and make collaborations happening. Generations Y/Z have the chance to create and establish a new culture in fashion, which is about to become more natural, more second skin like than ever before. We have the ability and technologies to create the new rather than copy Asian sweet couture, the 60’s, 80’s or the 90’s (high historical movements in society and fashion styles). In other words, show your style in your creative work just like Dapper Dan with his costumed Loui Vuitton leather jacket that gave Afro Americans/Africans the right to wear Loui Vuitton in public. Be your own culture that helps to create new cultures, communities, and technology designed tools to help sustain the future. Personify your voice in fashion and form with purpose (Kawamura, 2004, pp 57). I want to be part of the new tomorrow. The tomorrow where simplicity is beauty and sustainable.

 

Bibliography

 

Chieza, Natsai Audrey. TED: Ideas worth spreading. October 2017. Accessed December 03, 2017. https://www.ted.com/talks/natsai_audrey_chieza_fashion_has_a_pollution_problem_can_biology_fix_it#t-718319

 

Oxman, Neri. Proceedings of Design at the intersection technology and biology. Ted Talk, 2015.

 

Lee, Suzanne. Grow your own clothes. Proceedings of Ted Talk. Ted Talk, 2011.

 

Hollinger, Dennis, P.H.D. “BIOTECHNOLOGIES AND HUMAN NATURE: WHAT WE SHOULD NOT CHANGE IN WHO WE ARE.” Ethics & Medicine 29.3 (2013): 173,190,131. ProQuest. 11 Apr. 2018 .

 

Coles, Sarah. “Mottainai vs Methane: The Case for Textile Recycling.” ReNew: Technology for a Sustainable Future, no. 136 (2016): 34-37. http://www.jstor.org/stable/renetechsustfutu.136.34.

 

“Bolt Threads – Technology.” Bolt Threads. 2018. Accessed Jan. & feb. 2018. https://boltthreads.com/technology/.

 

Yam, Kimberly. “This Company Turns Plastic Bottle Trash From The Ocean Into Clothing.” The Huffington Post. April 03, 2017. Accessed Jan. & feb. 2018. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/this-company-turns-used-plastic-bottles-from-shorelines-into-clothing_us_57d17909e4b06a74c9f301f3.

 

Kawamura, Yuniya. Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2004. Accessed February 9, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central.

 

The True Cost = Der Wahre Preis Der Mode. By Andrew Morgan. 2015. Accessed March 24, 2018.

 

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