// SUSTAINABILITY //
Fashion Forward How Hemp Clothing Could Help Save the World By Taylor McLamb “The reality is that there are other products that have recycled hemp, or recycled plastic. These things exist. The access is the hard part, because hemp is expensive,” said West. “You want to look at the labels of your clothes and what’s in them. Look at where they were made, and how the people who made them were treated.”
Hemp Fashion Activist Pamela West
According to a study conducted by NASA, pandemic restrictions reduced global nitrogen dioxide concentrations by nearly 20%. Humanity’s temporary confinement created an immediate decline in air pollution. Stay-athome orders forced many to drastically change daily routines to adjust to the unprecedented new normal. This included less time spent traveling or driving and more time working from home. People are starting to see their impact on the environment and how a small act like driving less can create drastic change. Staying at home eliminated daily distractions that prevented people from reflecting on important issues like sustainability. Many people are now more aware of how to lessen their carbon footprint. For a lot of people, that journey starts at the closet. Airing Out the Fashion Industry’s Dirty Laundry In a study conducted shortly after the pandemic began, 67% of fashion consumers considered the use of sustainable materials to be 40
Cannabis & Tech Today // Summer 2021
an important purchasing factor. When searching for clothing brands, environmentally conscious companies can be a deciding factor on whether consumers purchase from them. While the fashion industry isn’t often brought up in conversations about sustainability, it’s one of the leading culprits of unneeded waste, water pollution, plastic pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, according to the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association (SMART), we globally produce a staggering 13 million tons of textile waste each year, 95% of which could be reused or recycled. The most common fabrics found in the clothes we buy — cotton, nylon, and polyester to name a few — are often laden with harmful petrochemicals and pesticides. Plus, they use a lot of water to produce. From cultivation to production, hemp could be the sustainable solution the fashion industry needs to do their part for a better planet. Pamela West, a devoted hemp fashion activist who shared her expertise at the Spring Emerge Virtual Cannabis Conference & Expo, emphasized the importance of being aware of where our clothes are made, as the manufacturing process is extremely dirty from an environmental perspective.
Changing the World One T-Shirt at a Time Due to the negative stigma of the cannabis plant, it’s historically been very difficult to access sustainable hemp clothing. The revolutionary passing of the 2018 Farm Bill, which made it legal to grow hemp in the United States for the first time since it was banned in 1937, finally gave designers access to hemp. For the first time, they could legally change their manufacturing structures and move away from the traditional cotton industry.
Jungmaven Founder Rob Jungmann
Rob Jungmann, owner and founder of popular hemp clothing brand Jungmaven, has been working in the world of hemp fashion since creating his first hemp t-shirt in the 90s. When Jungmann started, he was working out of a tiny surf shop in Central America, back before hemp fashion was even a term.
