Specific meanings of the woods reduce reuse recycle etc

[KatyMac]

I'm starting an upcycling business and want to clarify how you describe what I'm doing

I don't think using dress-making fabric for dress-making is recycling.
So if I buy dress-making fabric from a charity shop and make something out of it: is that part of 'reduce' or 'reuse'

Fabric I have had in my 'stash' and have had for several years is that reduce?

Or am I reaching too far?

Old Table cloths made into clothes is repurposing irrespective of whether they are charity shop/ragbag or whatever

& if I buy thread for a particular purpose then use it for something else 3 months later is still new?

All a bit garbled as I'm on my phone on a train

[KatyMac]

WORDSBB

[KatyMac]

!!

Give up now!!

[thenewaveragebear1983]

Using your example:
Reduce- not buying the dresses or fabric in the first place or buying second hand so reducing resources being used

Re-use - using the fabric to make other clothes, re-using the fabric to make cushions, appliqué patches, (or like I did yesterday, modifying a vintage dress to be more modern and wearable) or putting the fabric into use as something else, eg. Rag rugs, cleaning cloths,

Recycle- using recycling facilities to ensure the actual fibres of the fabric are turned into something else. Recycling to me suggests a physical breaking down of the item and remaking it into something else

As an aside, It grinds my gears when primary schools ask for cardboard boxes for model making and call it recycling! It's not recycling. The new product serves no purpose, plus covering things in glue and sticking materials together means that they actually can't be recycled.

[Pipandmum]

It doesn’t matter where you buy fabric or if it’s you or a factory - it’s new. If you buy an old tablecloth or curtains or and old article of clothing to make something else with it (cushion, dress etc) it is reusing, reducing and recycling!
Unless you are unpicking the thread off an item - which I think is carry the concept too far, then it is new. However old wool unravelled from an old sweater is not u heard of. Same for fabric you’ve had for ages - doesn’t matter when you bought it it’s still new in that it hadn’t been used for anything else.

[ErrolTheDragon]

I don't think using dress-making fabric for dress-making is recycling.
So if I buy dress-making fabric from a charity shop and make something out of it: is that part of 'reduce' or 'reuse'

I suppose if it's making use of an offcut or roll end which might otherwise be binned then it could count as 'reduce'.

& if I buy thread for a particular purpose then use it for something else 3 months later is still new?

Yes, but I'm not sure you need to account for every single element you need to use, do you? Thread needs to be fit for purpose, it's in no one's interest to use old thread and have it fail and spoil the product.

[KatyMac]

I know but I don't want to misrepresent what I'm doing

Apparently charity shop often send dress-making fabric to the 'ragman' as it doesn't sell round here and lots of people dying round here were dressmakers

[Ohyesiam]

Reduce means to use less, so instead of buying 3 new pairs of jeans a year, buying 1.

[Letsnotargue]

The reduce, reuse, recycle is the top part of the waste hierarchy, which then goes onto recover and dispose.

It was initially written from a waste management point of view, so the most environmentally friendly way of managing waste is to prevent it becoming waste bit he first place - only buying what you need, reducing the amount of offcuts of raw material, reducing the amount of waste produced when switching one product to another.

So it doesn’t always fit with a lifestyle application in its original form - buying g one pair of jeans instead of three might not help reduce waste as you may need to replace those earlier because you’ve worn them out. It’s mainly about designing waste out of production processes.

Having said that, obtaining things from the charity shop is likely to be a reuse activity as it stops the clothes/fabric being thrown away, sent for rag recycling etc. It doesn’t necessarily have to be reuse by the same person that created it.

[KatyMac]

The charity shops round here give clothes they can't sell to the rag man - he pays for them; he also takes household linens/cutains/unused dress fabric etc but doesn't pay

Some of the charity shops let me pick through that

I made a dress with a teatowel (see above) and some unused dress fabric, thread I had in (right colour) a zip I scavenged from clothes that went for recycling and some lace from a dress my mum made when I was a toddler (I am 51)

How would I market that?
It's an upcycles dress from discarded fabric and a repurposed teatowel with a reused zip and ??? Lace

[MoodLighting]

Think about it as re-use if it's had a previous owner already (even if it's fabric that wasn't used by that person).

[KatyMac]

Haha my mum just told me she bought a bag of lace officers from a jumble sale and that lace was in that bag!

It obviously runs in the family!!

[KatyMac]

Does this work?

Blue/White dress provenance:

Blue, recycled bed sheet

White with blue embroidery, donated tablecloth

White broderie anglaise, bought for a previous project (approx. 2002)

Thread, new

Embrodiery thread, donated pre 2000

Buttons, job lot (2015)

Ribbon, reused ‘hanging ribbons’