We’re a throwaway society. We throw everything away, from clothing, to food, to cars, and everything in between. One of the worst throwaway issues is packaging, and the fashion industry is one of the biggest polluters, encouraging consumers to buy their latest fashions and throw away last season’s clothes.
Clothing and accessories are wrapped and shipped in plastic that goes into the landfills or ends up in our oceans. What a disaster! By 2040, the amount of plastic found in our oceans is expected to nearly triple to 20 million metric tons, much of which will have come from packaging.
On August 13, California-based prAna, a sustainable yoga and outdoor apparel company, decided to do something about this problem. They launched a “Responsible Packaging” campaign. prAna changed the way their products are wrapped by eliminating harmful packaging materials that end up in landfills and our oceans.
The shift toward more responsible packaging started in 2010 when one of prAna’s store managers sent the corporate office a photo showing a large pile of polybags from prAna products with a question, “What do I do with all this?”
This birthed a new way of shipping they call the roll-pack method. It’s a folding technique in which clothes are rolled together and tied with natural materials, like raffia. This method protects each product during shipping and eliminates the need for poly bags. To date, prAna has replaced over 17 million poly bags with this more earth-friendly packaging.
In June, prAna became part of non-profit Canopy’s Pack4Good initiative, along with H&M, Reformation, Stella McCartney, VF Corp, TOMS, and others to lessen the impact of the packaging supply chain on the world’s forests. After a decade of using more responsible packaging, prAna realized that other brands were not stepping up to do their part. That’s when prAna decided to launch the Responsible Packaging Movement and invited other brands to join them.
With a mission to create “Clothing for Positive Change” for the good of the planet and its people, prAna has partnered with non-profits 5 Gyres and Canopy to help them totally eliminate plastic in their packaging by 2021, stop using materials from old and endangered forests by 2022, and eliminate virgin forest fibers by 2025.
A movement has more impact when you invite others to participate, and that’s what prAna has done. They’re asking their fellow clothing brands around the globe to join them in eliminating all plastic from their consumer packaging and use more sustainable materials that do no harm. So far, the clothing brands Mara Hoffman, Outerknown, and Toad and Co. have committed to the movement.
The member companies will not be on their own. prAna is offering assistance. When a brand expresses their commitment to removing single-use plastic and virgin forest fiber packaging from their supply chain, prAna will give them guidance.
Participants are asked to create their own responsible packaging goals to reduce or eliminate plastic and virgin or non-FSC forest fibers and share these goals with the prAna sustainability team, as well as publicly if they so choose. prAna will provide a social media toolkit and guidelines via webinars and emails, with access to industry leaders in roundtable discussions and networking spaces to ideate and share best practices.
In addition, prAna encourages consumers to join the mission, as well, by making responsible choices to reduce single-use plastic packaging, virgin fiber packaging, and excess packaging waste in their daily lives. What can you do to help? Don’t buy lunches packed in plastic clamshells, bring your own reusable container to restaurants for takeout and leftovers, use fewer paper towels or switch to cloth towels or wipes and reuse them, choose beauty and self-care products that come in sustainable or refillable packaging.
BRAVO, prAna! This is a great first step, but there’s more they can do. In these existential times, we always have to ask ourselves, is this enough?
prAna’s motto is “clothing for positive change,” and they’re doing a great service by using more sustainable packaging. However, although they do use some hemp and cotton in their fabrics, their clothing is mostly made of TENCEL, spandex, nylon, and polyester, all of which are petroleum-based fabrics – essentially, plastic.
My invitation to prAna – and other clothing retailers – is to make your products more sustainable by using only natural fibers. Come on, prAna, take the lead on your product content, too.
I know this a lot to ask, because it takes time, money, and full commitment to make these kinds of shifts. But WE DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT. Our environment is so damaged, that we’re losing multiple species to extinction every day. Bits of plastic and microfibers end up in our foods, like in fish. We’re eating these petroleum-based products, and petroleum is harmful to us. Our bodies were not meant to ingest this material. It disrupts our endocrine system and causes chronic illness.
Everyone needs to step up their shift to a sustainable lifestyle, starting today, starting now. That includes retailers, manufacturers, and you – the consumer. We’re all in this together.
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Featured Photo: prAna’s plastic-free packaging eliminates need for poly bags. Credit: Prana
