With the batch of mismatched children’s mittens given to her by the daycare service of a Montreal school, Isabelle Kaliaguine created a daring padded jacket. “It’s a research project,” says the design and museology graduate, who now works under the pseudonym Dr Rag. Isabelle Kaliaguine does not sell recycled products directly to individuals, but she offers companies to recycle their advertising banners, for example, to make products such as bags. And she leads clothing recovery workshops for all ages.
The passion for recycling came to Isabelle Kaliaguine when she was creating fabric decorations for big events. “I remember hanging out fabric to decorate all of Windsor Station,” she says. “Afterwards, the companies wanted to throw away the fabric. She was recycling it to do something else. Today, she uses banners to cover benches like those at the Jarry Park tennis stadium, and uses advertising canvases from department stores to give workshops on making anoraks or bags. “I can’t throw anything away,” she said. I always wonder what I could do with what no longer serves. During our interview, she wore a sweater made from salvaged fabric, the cuffs of which had been cut from sock legs.
The poor relation of recycling
Textiles are the poor relation of recycling in Quebec, confirms Brigitte Geoffroy, spokesperson for Recyc-Québec. “Fashion is a pretty sad industry,” she says. Although the trade in second-hand clothing is flourishing today, the recycling of textile materials is very marginal. And “clothes don’t go in the recycling bin,” notes Ms.me Geoffrey. With the exception, notes Isabelle Kaliaguine, entirely natural fibers, cotton for example, which can go to compost.
“The average Quebecer throws away 30 kilos of textiles per year,” says Isabelle Kaliaguine. However, materials such as polyester, for example, are made up of microplastics, which spread in the washing water. The clothing industry ranks sixth among polluting industries, and is one of the biggest polluters of drinking water, according to a report by London-based Eco experts group.
Of the more than 64,000 tonnes of textiles that were recovered in Quebec in 2021, we can read in the statistics of Recyc-Québec, “a little less than half of these were intended for local reuse (40%) . A similar amount (39%) was also sent to brokers, who then export the textiles mainly internationally, but also to other Canadian provinces. The remaining materials were transformed on site (rags, crafts, redesign — 15%)”. In 2018, less than 1% of recovered materials were sent to a recycling and packaging sector outside Quebec, as for defibration, “this sector being almost non-existent in Quebec”.
It must be said that textile recycling is a costly operation. Christiane Garant, who for 25 years produced clothes for the Myco Anna brand, made in part with second-hand textiles, has experienced this.
“In the early years, the clothes were made 100% with second-hand textiles, woollens that were transformed into winter jackets and accessories,” she says. Then, the company gradually integrated commercial scraps of fabric.
“The more recycled fibers there were, the more it cost to produce. It takes labor to transform, cut, fetch the material, wash it, defoam it,” says the designer, who ceased production four years ago to open a boutique of local creations.
“Afterwards, in woollens, there may be a stain or a hole, that means that we cannot do large-scale production. It’s more artisanal, piece by piece. Not all materials react in the same way. »
Raise prices?
To continue its production, it would have been necessary to raise prices, explains Mme Guarantor, what the clientele was perhaps not ready to assume. Eco-responsible fashion, she says, is done “with a real environmental conscience, and not out of greed”.
Moreover, textile recycling channels are extremely rare. Marianne-Coquelicot Mercier, for example, developed Chroma markers, made from 80% recycled clothing fibers and 20% regenerated polyester fibers. Isabelle Kaliaguine also talks about Econyl, an Italian company that recovers recyclable nylon from fishing nets, even if it means going to look for them in the ocean, to make swimsuits for example.
These initiatives are marginal. The main problem with textile pollution is overconsumption. On a global scale, according to data from Myriam Laroche, a consultant in the ecological shift in the fashion industry, “a garment is worn on average seven times before being thrown away. More than 50% of the fast fashion produced is thrown away less than a year later. And since 2008 alone, in the era of consumerist culture, clothing production has increased by almost 200%, and consumption by more than 60%.
Fashion is a pretty sad industry. [Et] clothes do not go in the recycling bin.
It is therefore ephemeral fashion, inexpensive, not very durable and often using polluting fabrics, which is in the dock. “If a new item of clothing costs less than 20 dollars”, it is because it comes from this industry, says Myriam Laroche.
However, the solutions are often more complex than they appear, she continues. Cotton is biodegradable, but its production consumes a lot of water. Faux fur saves animals, but is made with chemicals and is not biodegradable. Myriam Laroche would also like clothes washing machines to be equipped with filters to capture microplastics.
Sustainable clothing
The key word in responsible fashion is therefore sustainability. If a garment is of good quality, it will last longer. Isabelle Kaliaguine remembers men’s pants that could easily be adjusted to the waist, depending on whether he was losing weight or fattening up, and could therefore last for years.
Granddaughter of a seamstress, she noticed that this profession is not valued in Quebec, as if this sector necessarily attracted people who cannot do extended studies. In France, she noted, people are, or have been, more likely to have their clothes repaired than to throw them away. “They darn their torn socks, for example,” she says. A rare phenomenon here.
With her workshops, she reaches a whole population, from teenagers to the elderly, who want to keep their clothes longer, even if it means transforming them, thanks to an applique or embroidery, to hide their wear. And proudly display his new life.