This Saturday, April 22nd, is Earth Day. And that means it’s a day to celebrate soil.
If Earth Day is sunny, I’ll put on my Soil Sisters cap and step outside to watch the sky, listen to the birds, hang out the wash. Grab some clothespins!
Hanging out laundry might seem like a small action to take to celebrate Earth Day.
But Soil Sisters and members of Heartland Threads Fibershed, including HTF’s founder and board president, Soil Sister LindaDee Derrickson, know that small actions like reading clothing labels and line-drying the wash can have a big impact on our local soil and water.
When you know what your clothes and household textiles are made of, you know what you’re putting next to your skin and the skin of those you love. Reading clothing labels before you buy will tell you a story, a story that very few clothes or fabrics in your home come from south-central Wisconsin.
That matters because we almost never see how most of the fabrics in our homes and closets are made. Or who made them. But if we think of south-central Wisconsin as our local fibershed, as the place where local fibers are grown and processed, we’d see Soil Sisters/HTF participating in all kinds of small-scale fiber production.
Many Soil Sisters and HTF members raise livestock animals, especially sheep. Grazing animals who live on a Soil Sister/HTF farm are true multitaskers: they might supply meat, milk and fiber, all while improving the soil. Grazing animals help keep soil alive. Which helps keep our waters clean, too.
Many Soil Sisters/HTF members process, spin, knit and weave the gorgeous fibers that come from their alpacas, goats and sheep. Fibers from their farm. Which is about as local as a fiber can get. And producing natural fibers right here in south-central Wisconsin, in the Heartland Threads Fibershed, is how we can begin an Earth Day dream of larger-scale local textile production.
The U.S. imports and then discards millions of pounds of clothing and other textiles each year. Small changes to our clothes buying, wearing and laundry habits can start to turn that around. We can start to support slow fashion, fashion grown right here in our south-central Wisconsin fibershed.
In the 1940s, Wisconsin farmers produced more hemp than any other state. Hemp fiber found its way into products including rope and heavy-duty textiles. But in 1970, laws changed, outlawing hemp farming. With updates to state and federal law, Wisconsin farmers could once again add hemp to their crop rotations. And then we could start recreating the infrastructure to turn fiber plants like hemp and flax into spun fibers and textiles.
Our region is already rich in animal-based fibers. Soil Sisters, including HTF members and the Driftless Tannery, are busy turning fleeces and skins into a range of home-grown, homemade textiles—knitted gloves, hats, mittens, socks, sweaters, scarves, hand-woven textiles and rugs, fleece rugs, toys, wallhangings, leather drums. This Earth Day, we can start thinking about how to produce our own fabrics on a larger scale. And then, the clothing we hang out to dry would be truly local. Textiles from south-central Wisconsin, the area covered by the Heartland Threads Fibershed, would be a product of the sun and our soil and water, and those textiles would come from plants, animals, and people you know.
Here are some ideas to pin on our idea clothesline.
● Start reading clothing and textile labels. Learn what your clothes and “linens” are made of and where they were made. Look for items made with natural fibers, especially flax or linen, hemp, silk, and wool. Natural fibers come from the sun, soil and water. Synthetics, like polyester, nylon and spandex, come from an oil barrel.
● Wear your clothes for more than one fashion season. If you can, invest in higher-quality clothes that will last for years. Although “fast fashion” might be cheaper, it is harder on the environment and workers in every phase of its all too short “life” cycle.
● Recycle clean textiles at Goodwill and St. Vinny’s, and then shop for clothes at these resale shops.
● Wash clothes and home goods using cold water.
● Consider using a “filter” laundry bag for washing synthetics, to keep synthetic microfibers out of laundry wastewater.
● Use a clothesline outside or set up a drying rack inside.
● Dry clothes on the “low” cycle. Low-temp drying takes longer, but uses less energy than drying at higher temperature settings, which is easier on fabrics.
● Learn to mend. Extend the wearing life of clothing by sewing on new buttons and mending small rips.
Start turning laundry day into a mini Earth Day!
— Patty Peltekos maintains a ready supply of clothespins at her home in the Town of Primrose. Soil Sisters, a program of Renewing the Countryside, connects and champions women in the Green County area committed to sustainable and organic agriculture, land stewardship, local food, family farms and healthy and economically vibrant rural communities.
