Episode 56: Undressing the Conscious Closet with Elizabeth Cline (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Liz Bothwell: Hi everyone, welcome to Waste360's Nothing Wasted Podcast. On every episode, we invite the most interesting people in waste recycling and organics to sit down with us and chat candidly about their thoughts, their work, this unique industry and so much more. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode.

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[00:00:26] Liz: Hi, everyone, this is Liz Bothwell, from Waste360 with Elizabeth Cline. She's an author, journalist, expert on consumer culture, fast fashion, sustainability, and labor rights. Welcome, Elizabeth, thanks for being on the show today.

[00:00:41] Elizabeth Cline: Hi, Liz. It is so great to be here, I am excited to dig into the world of waste with you.

[00:00:47] Liz: Excellent. Could you start by introducing yourself, and telling us more about what fueled your passion for sustainability?

[00:00:54] Elizabeth: Sure. I am a journalist and the author of two books. The first, came out in 2012, it's called Overdress: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. Then, this past year, in august of 2019, I put out a book called, The Conscious Closet: The Revolutionary Guide to Looking Good While Doing Good. Both books are about the global apparel industry, the hidden and unexpected impacts that our clothing choices have on the world around us, including impacts on the environment.

I've been writing about this subject for almost a decade, we can dig into a little bit more about what took me there, if you'd like me to go explain how I had my eureka moment and decided to start writing about this.

[00:01:52] Liz: I would love that.

[00:01:53] Elizabeth: [laughs] It's an embarrassing story. Prior, to writing Overdress, I was not writing about the fashion industry, I was working as a journalist, mostly, writing about culture, arts, music, and nightlife. I became a shopaholic, I amassed over 350 items of clothing. All of it was very cheap, I was very into going into discount, and fast fashion stores, like Forever 21, Old Navy or just going to the clearance aisle of any store.

It was like cheap shopping became a sport to me. It was ironic, because I was a very conscious consumer in other aspects of my life, I try to eat organic, eat local, and recycle, I do all the things. But then, with clothing, I just didn't have that same reflection.

I noticed that, pretty much, everybody around me was shopping this same way, maybe not as extreme, but had started really buying a lot more clothes and buying clothes very cheaply. I was like, "Okay. There's a book in this because something clearly, fundamentally, has changed in the clothing industry that is making this possible." That is how I got the idea for Overdressed, it was out of my own tumble into the world of cheap binge shopping for clothes. [laughs]

[00:03:33] Liz: [laughs] That's normally how it happens. Then, that really becomes real and you can write in a concrete way about it.

[00:03:41] Elizabeth: What is so interesting to me in the apparel industry, in particular, is that the supply chain for clothes is so long and so complicated, that I ended up going to Bangladesh, China, Dominican Republic, all over the American South, and out to the West Coast. It took a lot of on the ground reporting to even piece together the story of what we wear.

As consumers, we’re so disconnected from that story. It's a hard and complicated story to tell, but I think it's a worthy one. People want to know where their things come from. Since, I know, we're going to be talking about waste as well, people are also increasingly curious about where their stuff goes, once they get rid of it as well.

[00:04:33] Liz: Absolutely. Your book, Overdressed really was the first piece of work that revealed the impacts of fast fashion. Were you surprised by the impact that that book had?

[00:04:45] Elizabeth: Unfortunately, the reason why Overdressed had the impact that it had is because of the Rana Plaza factory collapse that came out less than one year, after the book's release. Overdress came out in a way before its time, no one was ready to hear that message, it took the collapse of a factory in Bangladesh, that killed almost 1200 people and injured thousands of others. It was a garment factory that made clothes for popular western clothing brands, that was the wake-up call.

Then, people were like, "Maybe, we should listen to what this lady is saying about fast fashion because, clearly, there are all sorts of impacts associated with the way we've decided to set up our clothing industry. Let's start having a conversation about that, and then, let's start talking about how we can reform the industry for better".

[00:05:52] Liz: Absolutely. You wrote that book-- it came out in 2012, right?

[00:05:57] Elizabeth: Yes.

[00:05:58] Liz: Have you seen a shift in consumption habits, interest around fashion, and wanting to offset the environmental impacts of it since then?

[00:06:08] Elizabeth: Yes, absolutely. I would say that just in the last two to three years, there's been a sea change in consumer interest and clamoring for sustainability in the fashion industry, it is a global movement. In 2019, in particular, that was a really big turning point, where you saw almost, virtually, every major brand, clothing company, and retailer, making significant commitments to sustainability, whether it was Uniqlo saying that it would eliminate single-use plastics, like plastic bags, from its stores. To H&M and Zara, two of the biggest fast-fashion players, saying that they're going to source, "Sustainable materials for all of their clothes by 2025." The industry was also setting science-based targets to reduce their carbon emissions, all of that happened in a very short period of time. Last year, there was so much momentum.

Of course, the question now is, what is going to happen to the sustainable fashion movement? In light of coronavirus, brands are in financial crisis, but at the same time, I think that consumers are realizing more than ever that we have more than enough, we want to rethink how we're living. It's going to be interesting to see where the conversation heads coming out of this pandemic.

[00:07:46] Liz: It definitely will, on the brand side, and also- we'll get into this with your new book, but what do you think will happen with all the secondhand clothing coming out of this pandemic? I keep reading about goodwill, and other donation centers, being overrun by donations, even, when their doors are closed.

[00:08:03] Elizabeth: I think that that's a really interesting question. I also heard that the folks that run thredUP, which is the largest online thrift store, their distribution centers are in their warehouses where they accept clean out kits, and clothes to be sold on their website. They're running at half capacity, they don't have as many people in their warehouses, but people are cleaning out, they're being just a huge surge in donations.

Last I heard, there were a lot of changes happening in the supply chain to use clothing as well, where certain countries in East Africa have halted the flow, the import of used clothes. I think that there's a lot of things happening in the clothing, both new clothing, and second-hand clothing, supply chains, that we all need to pay attention to and explore. I think, for me, I would say it's too early, I don't know what's going to come out of this, but I would be curious to know what you think.

[00:09:15] Liz: It's a huge question. I think there are going to be changes to the supply chain. At this point, I think it's a wait and see approach, because I think the momentum was in favor of building more sustainability. But to your point earlier, I also think that once we come out of this, consciousness will be higher, consumers are going to demand that brands change, and that they do offer other sustainable solutions. If we're just talking about that, I think we will keep going down the road of a more sustainable future where fashion is concerning, where brands are concerned.

On the second-hand side, I think it's probably- for now as consumers and as people, yes we want to clean out but maybe we can keep those bags in our garages for now. Short term, to just not overwhelm and just make sure that they get to where they need to go instead of the landfill, because if there isn't anyone to receive them, that's where it's going to end up. Obviously, that's not what we want, that wasn't our intent in cleaning out and donating.

[00:10:30] Elizabeth: Yes, a lot of my advocacy since The Conscious Closet has been around this idea of a mindful or conscious closet clean-out and trying to educate consumers about where their clothes go after they drop them off at the charity or take them to a clothing donation bin in their community, or even to an in-store program run by companies like The North Face or H&M.

That story it's hard, it's a complicated one to tell to consumers but it's important because, otherwise, you get these situations where people are just thinking about getting stuff out of their house, and they're not thinking about the fact that everything is closed down.

Where is it that people imagine this stuff is going to go? The charity shops have been closed for weeks, I'm assuming their warehouses are closed as well. I think that's one of the things, that we don't think a lot about garbage. That level of awareness is starting to shift, but I think it just points out that we have more work to do, we have more storytelling to do so that the public understands that there is this huge industry full of millions of people around the world who manage our garbage and make sure that it doesn't ultimately go into the landfill and if it has a second life, and has a second life that it gets to the place that it needs to go. I do think that we have more work to do around that area, clearly.

[00:12:14] Liz: Absolutely. As you know, clothing is one of the fastest-growing categories of waste to the landfills. I read that one garbage truck of clothing is dumped every two minutes in the US. Is that what you've read? Because I know you're doing research as well.

[00:12:30] Elizabeth: Yes, that statistic is actually from The Conscious Closet, and based on me just looking at the figures that the EPA puts out and putting it into more concise terms. Yes, you're absolutely right, it is one of the fastest-growing categories waste to landfill. I think evidence of a need to change keeps changing the industry. For so long charities have played the role of waste management for textiles, and clearly that is not a total solution anymore, there's just too much clothing waste.

I think that's why it's so important that the resale economy has cropped up and you've got these apps, like Poshmark, Indie-Pop that have made it so much easier for people to whop and sell their used clothes, because it just gives them a way to keep clothes out of the landfill and also shop sustainably. I feel prior to coronavirus we were coming up with some really interesting solution to this problem of textile waste, and hopefully, we'll get to pick up more or less where we were before it started and keep going with it.

[00:13:47] Liz: I hope so too. Speaking of some of the brands that are producing clothing from recycled content, I know you were talking about the second-hand market, but the folks that make clothing out of recycled bottles, is that a sustainable model? It's that the right model or is it a combination? Because they're still pushing people to acquire new things, but they're trying to do it with the most sustainable materials that they can think of.

[00:14:13] Elizabeth: Right. It's a great question and it's a very difficult question to answer. One of the challenges for the fashion industry -and we've really seen this because of the pandemic- most brands retailers do not own their factories. They are changing the parts of the process that they have control over, which is the design of the product and, potentially, the end of life, so they're recycling, they can have a take-back program or recycling program in their store.

I think that that's part of why we're seeing brand with so much emphasis on fibers and materials because, it's a lot more challenging to work with your suppliers to curb carbon emissions, change the type of energy they're using, change the amount of water they're using because brands they benefit, they profit from the fact that they don't own their factories and they only have so much influence and control over that supplier base at this point.

There's also the kind of bigger question that all companies in our economy, they want to be growing, all they're thinking about right now is how can we get back to growth? How can we open more stores? How can we sell more units? Almost all the companies in the fashion industry operate on a volume basis now, including luxury brands. The game is to make something as cheaply as possible and hopefully sell it at full price, just make a ton of stuff. It's an obvious point, but in what universe does that line up with the ecosystem and the ecology of planet Earth, which is finite? It's complicated.

[laughter]

[00:16:34] Liz: What I love is your optimism about tackling it because, it is complicated, and like you said in the beginning, the supply chain is complicated. You've got such awareness to it already, we appreciate that.

Getting back to the waste and recycling industry, can you see a way for us to be more integrated with a circular model? Is there a way to create a better system? Can technology help? I know that's a big question [laughs].

[00:17:07] Elizabeth: Yes, let's see if we can break that down. I think one thing is that I see clothing brands and retailers developing, "Circular strategies" that are very out of touch with how the second-hand industry actually works. I'm going to try and think of an example of that. For one thing, everybody in the world of waste knows that reuse is the best use. If anything can have a second life, that's what you want to see. But I feel what I'm seeing is brands running take-back programs on products that could have a second life, and they're recycling them instead.

Part of that is because they don't want products to have a second life, they want people to be buying new things. That's, I guess, the cynical perspective on it. But then I think it's also because brands and waste experts don't have conversations, there's has to be more integration between people designing sustainable systems on the brand side and people in the world of waste. Otherwise, you're going to keep getting these very distorted ideas of how circularity is going to work.

What I would want to see is, anytime I'm invited to a waste conference, anything to do with second-hand clothes, there's have to be brands and retailers there, that conversation needs to be happening more. I'm really interested in some other recycling innovations that are coming up, like the True Chemical textile to textile recycling innovations, I think they're going to be pretty game-changing.

[00:18:53] Liz: I think so too. Even I'm seeing with robotics there might be AI, there might be a way to use that with textile recycling as well. I'm curious to watch how that helps.

[00:19:06] Elizabeth: Yes, I'm of two minds about the automation stuff. On the one hand, it's going to make it easier to repurpose and recycle materials because machines can do huge very precise sorts. Say you're a retailer and you want to do an upcycled line of emo pants and put patches on them or something. A machine could go through millions of pounds of clothes and sort out everything that you need to make that possible. Obviously, if that if you were using human labor to do that, it would be very expensive. But then, on the other hand, there are a lot of people whose livelihoods depend on the second-hand industry.

I also want to make sure that people across the second-hand supply chain benefit from innovation in particular. There are millions of people that work in the secondhand industry in East Africa, and I've done a lot of research in Kenya about that industry. I also have some colleagues that work for [unintelligible 00:20:13]foundation and they do research in Ghana. We're always talking to the second-hand dealers and being like, "How can these technological innovations benefit your community too?"

That could include having textile recycling facilities in these markets, in the places where stuff, ultimately, ends up after it's gone through every single phase of trying to find a second home, it ends up in East Africa. What would textile recycling technology do for those communities? I think it's also really important and an interesting conversation to have.

[00:20:49] Liz: Definitely. Elizabeth, I do want to talk about your new book Conscious Closet, it's fantastic. For people who haven't read it yet, it's getting great reviews from Real Simple to Publishers Weekly. What I loved about it is that you can make it work, you can show people that they can have a conscious closet without having to spend a fortune. It really can appeal to the masses and show people that, every day, they can make a conscious effort to improve their footprint. Can you talk a little bit about what inspired you to write the book and what you cover within the book?

[00:21:27] Elizabeth: It is actually my experience in the secondhand clothing industry that inspired The Conscious Closet. I was filming this documentary, that maybe one day I'll finish, about secondhand clothes. That took me to Nairobi, Kenya. Then I was also working part-time at a used clothing facility in Brooklyn called Wearable Collections, so I was just around used clothes all the time. There's so much clothing waste in the world, it is staggering, it is mind-blowing, mind-boggling how much unwanted clothing there is.

What that made me realize was when these kinds of approaches to sustainability that say you have to buy an organic cotton dress or recycled polyester jacket, that that it's sustainability, that doesn't really square up with what I was seeing in the secondhand trade, because if you buy that dress, wear it twice and throw it away, that's not sustainable. We have to have a much more holistic, inclusive, inviting, friendly approach to sustainability.

That's why The Conscious Closet takes readers through the closet clean-out. How do you do that more mindfully? How to wash your clothes more sustainably, how to repair and care for your clothes more sustainably, how to curate the clothes that you've got so you wear them more, and then, shopping it's just one small piece of that puzzle.

It's a book about the whole lifecycle of our clothing and about our entire relationship to our clothes, because that relationship extends much further than the cash register at the store. It is encompassing our everyday life. I wanted to show people how in all of these different touchpoints with your clothes and different moments in your relationship with your clothes, you can make a more sustainable choice.

[00:23:46] Liz: Absolutely, I love that. If you could share a couple of secrets in looking through your closet, donating mindfully and caring for your things mindfully. Can you share a couple of secrets that won't give it all away, but at least will help people that are listening now?

[00:24:06] Elizabeth: Totally. The book -it sounds like you've checked it out- it's packed with information, so I'm happy to give away some of the information in it. One of the biggest things, since we're talking about textile waste so much, is a lot of people don't realize that there's textile recycling, that there can be a future for even worn-out clothes. I start by simply telling people, "If something's broken, even that doesn't mean that it needs to go in the trash." Of course, I walk people through how to do basic repairs, a lot of people are like, "I can't, it's too overwhelming", but, in the book, I make it very easy and I know that people can do this stuff. It's also really fun and satisfying.

From there, I walk people through how to make sure your clothes don't end up in the trash. Liz, what you and I know, but a lot of consumers don't realize is that many charities in our communities double as textile recyclers, they often partner with other companies that will take the clothes away, sort through them, and if they're damaged, maybe they'll get shredded, and turn it into isulation or maybe they'll be turned into wiping rags. There are things that can be done with these clothes.

The other thing is, because the second-hand industry is global, it could be that something that you think is worn out is not worn out to someone else, that they would be happy to wear it. The first thing that I do is, one, try to explain to people what really happens to you used clothes, what does that story look like, and to show them that there is a vast array of afterlives that our clothes can have. Again, this goes back to our initial conversation, the book starts with how to be more sustainable about how you clean out your closet. It's very anti-Marie Kondo, they're like, "Just purge it, throw it out and don't think about what happens next" [laughs]. 

[00:26:21] Liz: So true [laughs]. You also make it clear that you can do this, but you can still be stylish and you don't have to sacrifice that side of things. Because I think we have a whole generation of people who are coming up who want to walk the walk and talk to talk, but they want to make sure that they are building wardrobes that are more conscious. Because, like you said earlier, you were living a life where you were eating organic food and being very mindful about waste. It's refreshing to see you bring this to the forefront because I do think there is a generation of environmentalists looking for solutions.

[00:26:59] Elizabeth: Yes, I think gen Z in particular. They grew up in a world of fast fashion and social media where trends are changing very quickly, fashion is really important to them, but so is sustainability. They're the generation that won't accept trade-off, they truly want it all. That's why I think companies and solutions that provide that to them are successful.

That's one of the reasons why the resale market is booming, is because of Gen Z. It allows them to rotate their closet, look trendy, keep up with fashion, look unique and also be sustainable. Personally, I was not a fashion plate, I was not stylish at all when I was a fast fashion addict. I think being conscious about clothing requires you to, one, admit that clothing matters, that it's important to us on a personal level, it's an important industry, it's important in the world.

I have found that almost everyone I've ever met who decides to be more conscious about how they buy their clothes and how they build a wardrobe, also sees benefits in their style. They find that personal style and that sense of personal expression that feels true to them, and that is often the best defense against wanting to just binge shop something because it's 75% off. It's that little bit of a barrier or armor that makes you say, "You know what? I already have enough", or, "I'm willing to wait for something that I truly love."

[00:29:01] Liz: Yes, absolutely. I did read -and it was probably on your own website- that you're working on a textile waste secondhand clothing research project. You may have alluded to that a little bit already, but can you talk about that?

[00:29:16] Elizabeth: Sure. The research project is really an extension of the documentary that I started working on back in 2016. That research project is partially what just became The Conscious Closet. I went to have done a lot of on-the-ground research in Kenya, as I said earlier, talking to vendors there, but I also have done a lot of research with wearable collections. I mentioned them earlier, they're a Brooklyn or New York-based used clothing collectors, they pick up donations.

I have spent countless hours digging through what comes in to the wearable collections waste stream in order to better understand what they're getting rid of, what kinds of clothes were getting rid of, what condition we're getting rid of clothes in, because all of that helps inform solutions. That was how I realized that we were raising a generation of people that didn't know how to sew a button back on. [laughs]

Nobody enjoys sewing buttons back on, but it's a life skill at every single American, every person on the planet, must know how to do. I know secondhand traders, I also know the industry side of this. That could be the thing that makes someone just look at a garment and be like, "I'm just going to throw this away, because this garment is close to worthless anyway and it doesn't have a button on it." That can be the dividing line between something having a second life and something going in the trash. The research project is ongoing, it continues. I also just like digging through used clothes, so it's an excuse.

[laughter] 

[00:31:15] Liz: It sounds like a good excuse to me [laughs]. I know you've mentioned a ton of brands and a lot of the work that you're doing, is there a company or a brand that you've seen reuse materials? Or an innovative project that you've seen them do that has really wowed you?

[00:31:36] Elizabeth: Yes, I'm really fascinated by the concept that's upcycling at scale. True recycling, chemical recycling, is very energy-intensive, so what if we could take, worn-out, unstylish clothes that nobody wants to wear, save those textiles and upcycle them into new products, but do it in a way that is more industrialized so that it's profitable instead of prohibitively expensive? That's always been a challenge with upcycling.

Steven Bethell, who runs a huge used clothing company called Bank & Vogue and he also rents a retail chain called Beyond Retro in the UK and Sweden that sells second-hand clothes, they partnered with Converse this past year to do Chuck Taylors Converse sneakers where the uppers were made out of denim scraps. The way he was able to do that is because he has this massive sorting facility in India. They worked with the brand to get the exact color that they wanted, the right thickness, he was able to do this huge sort and those materials were salvaged and used in a very cool-looking sneaker, I keep meaning to get a pair.

That's one example of something I'm super excited about. We're starting to see these chemical recycling textiles come out. One example of that that I'm pretty floored by, is the Stella McCartney Adidas collaboration with Ever New. Ever New is a US-based textile recycling company. When I first saw the sweatshirt that they came out with, it was a prototype, I was like, "Okay, what's the big deal? You recycled clothes, we've been doing that for a long time", but what I've learned since then about the Ever New process is that they basically do what they call the molecular regeneration.

They're able to take cotton and break it down using the viscose manufacturing process to create a fiber that is high enough quality to be recycled, or it's at least four times, maybe five times. That is game-changing, because in the past, textile recycling has always produced a lower quality product. They've managed to create something that is a higher quality product than even the original cotton garment that they were working with, which is mind-blowing.

[00:34:34] Liz: That is mind blowing. I will check that out, and also check out the Converse as well. I'd love to hear about that innovation.

[00:34:41] Elizabeth: Yes. I think we need both solutions. The upcycling piece of it is really important because it's less energy-intensive, you're just taking material that already exists and repurposing it. We also have to have companies like Threadup that are just helping take all of these clothes that are out in existence and give them a second home. We have to have all of these things working together to make this happen.

[00:35:10] Liz: Yes, we definitely do. There are a lot of brands out there promising that they're being conscious and environmentally aware. Do you have any tips for people on avoiding greenwashing? Are there labels that you can trust?

[00:35:28] Elizabeth: That's a great question and I go into it quite a bit in The Conscious Closet. I don't want people to be scared off about greenwashing, I don't want people to worry too much about it. As consumers, you have to just decide for you how much research you're going to have to do into a brand. Even for me, I'm not going to spend an hour trying to figure out if a brand it's tricking me with their environmental campaigns.

Going back to something I said earlier, one of the ways that brands do have control over their sustainability is in the materials they choose. You can think of it like shopping for food. Look at the ingredients, what fabric is this company using? From there, it's actually not that complicated because a lot of this stuff we already into it or understand.

For example, with natural materials, you certainly can look for organic, you can look for organic cotton, organic wool. You can also look for -since this has come up so much already in this conversation- you can look for recycled cotton. It's not just the recycled plastic bottles that we're seeing, I'm seeing recycled cashmere, cashmere and wool, and now we're starting to see recycled cotton as well. That would be a good place to start. There are certifications, but there aren't nearly as many as there need to be [laughs]. That's a bigger conversation that the industry is having right now, how to standardize all these claims.

[00:37:25] Liz: That is a big question, hopefully that will get [unintelligible 00:37:28] away as well. What do you think it's the most resource-intensive part of our clothing? Is it the production? The washing, the disposing of it? What do you think has the biggest effect? It sounds like you're saying a combination of everything needs to be done, but I would love to hear what you think is the most resource intensive part. 

[00:37:51] Elizabeth: Far in a way, it's the manufacturing of new textiles. Most big brands, something usually between 70 and 90% of their environmental impact happens in manufacturing. It's not in the retail stores, not in the shipping, even, it's in the making of more clothes. Washing clothes does have a high environmental impact. It's hard to compare it, though, to manufacturing, because it depends.

If you keep a pair of jeans for five years and wash them over the course of five years, that's going to have a higher impact than if you're a fast fashion consumer and you buy a shirt, wash it once, and then throw it out. We want people to keep their clothes a long time, and we want people to wash more sustainably as well. But really, the big impact is in the making, which is why buying second hand has such a big impact. It really makes a difference if you just extend the life of that garment.

It's also why buying less can be so powerful. If you need clothes, if you do not have fashion in your life, please go out and buy what you need, but if you're that person that it's more like- I used to be that fast fashion consumer who's just buying because things are cheap, or on sale. You have a lot of power over your environmental footprint simply by pausing and saying, "You know what? I do not need that. My closet is full, I'm fine, I'm just going to walk away" [laughs]. 

[00:39:50] Liz: [laughs] That's great advice. I think things might be changing after this, as we're all home and really looking over our closets, our lives, and wanting to have order. It's good timing in that way, at least.

[00:40:05] Elizabeth: Yes. I see people having a lot of, I think, healthy conversations right now, as we are in quarantine. People are calling it The Great Pause, or Forced Slowing Down. It's just one of those moments in life where, especially in the US, you realize that so many of us we are so privileged and we are so lucky, we have so much.

Everything in the world around us is constantly telling us that we need more, that happiness is in the next purple, fuchsia, silk blouse that's 50% off. I've being shaken from some of those illusions. I think that we were already having conversations about being more mindful, and they've just accelerated because we're locked up and thinking about the lives that we lead and the world we want to build coming out of this.

[00:41:16] Liz: Absolutely. It'll be interesting to watch. Elizabeth, you've given us such great advice already, is there anything else you want to share about your book? Or anything else specific to waste and recycling that our audience would love?

[00:41:33] Elizabeth: I'll just say again that the book, The Conscious Closet, I did everything that I could to make it really fun and interesting. I think that there's something in it for everyone. I would not expect everyone to do everything in the book, but if you've been thinking about learning how to patch your jeans, or you've been thinking- a lot of people have been hand-washing since coronavirus started. If you've been wondering what a sustainable material is, all of that information is in The Conscious Closet.

You can also check it out from your libraries, is what I'll say. With your cash strapped, please just borrow it, lend it, that's also more sustainable too.

[00:42:19] Liz: That's great. I love that. I really appreciate your time today and I hope everyone can read your book, learn as much as I did and appreciate the work that you're doing. Thank you. Is there a Twitter handle or anything else you want folks to check out so they can follow the work you're doing?

[00:42:39] Elizabeth: Yes. I am pretty active on Instagram. My handle is my name: Elizabethlcline, all in one word. I also am on Twitter under the same handle. Find me on social media and shoot me any questions that you have

[00:42:57] Liz: Great. Thank you so much for this, I hope you and your loved ones stay well. I look forward to talking with you soon.

[00:43:05] Elizabeth: Sounds good. Everybody stay safe out there. 

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