By Andrew Bennett

EIGHTEEN months ago, as co-founders of Arkdefo, my wife Elizaveta and I started a social experiment: could we collect old denim from the public and turn it into something new and exciting? We wanted to show the possibilities of a creative approach to textile waste.

Most people have a pair or two of jeans lying at the back of their wardrobe, so we decided to start with jeans: classic and durable. We thought we would help people declutter, save the textile waste, and raise awareness.

Did we succeed? We’d have to say no.

In the early days, in Edinburgh, we collected the jeans ourselves. We were everywhere, backpacks on, in rain or shine. Every collection on foot. Everything hurt but we felt we were making a real difference.

We moved to Glasgow in early 2021 and continued collecting. This time we shared the responsibility with the public with many donations dropped off or posted to us.

Most of what we collected was stretchy denim. It isn’t great to work with, but we got creative. We used everything.

The higher quality denim was used for jackets, trousers, dresses, and kilts. The offcuts became stuffing for our denim doorstoppers, and then the old zips were used for purses. We had this grand idea: look what we can do, you could do this too!

Sadly, we were turning into a micro charity. A drop-off point to avoid dealing with it. New or worn-out, clean or dirty – charities have become a dumping ground for our bad shopping habits. The stories of volunteers we’ve heard have the same sad narrative. Eighty pwe cent of donations become trash.

Unwashed, smelly, soiled, urine soaked, or blood-stained. Yes, these are all anecdotes from charity workers. Collecting, sorting, washing, drying, and then storing ready for use. It was a tremendous amount of work that became untenable.

We estimated that only 10% of donated jeans were pre-washed. We ourselves have experienced all sorts of surprises: from cigarette butts in the pockets to jeans soaked in lacquer. People may not understand that if clothes are not washed, they are not sold.

Therefore, we stopped the campaign and changed our message to “save denim” We want to inspire more people to save or re-invent their clothes themselves. It’s not about make do and mend, it’s about learning to make too.

We all must take responsibility for our purchases, finding new ways to keep them in use, mend or repair, upcycle into new garments, wear more often and generally be more mindful about our impact.

And if you want to learn to sew, we can help you, it doesn’t have to be seen as scary, it is fun and creative.

Learning how to make your own clothes, such as through our online sewing courses, or how to upcycle, can keep clothes in circulation for longer, taking the pressure off charities and our household budget and of course, the environment.

For more on us, check out arkdefo.com.