Have you ever eaten an apple that didn’t look perfect, perhaps had some minor spots? How did it taste and make you feel? Did it nourish you?
Or did you ever wear a pair of sneakers that looked and felt better with every new step you walked in it? Perhaps every step made it even more unique and valuable to you?
Maybe you answered these questions with “yes” and shared that you actually don’t mind these little imperfections. Perhaps you even said that they made these items even more unique and “real”? But maybe these questions were totally strange for you and what you are looking for is perfection.
Either way, I’d love to invite you on the Tripulse journey towards Zero Waste.
Introducing Tripulse ZeroWaste
Tripulse ZeroWaste is our way to say “yes” to “perfectly imperfect” products and that equally deserve life and love as our “perfect” activewear.
Instead of labelling them as waste and discarding them, we want to keep our activewear with minor blemishes, prototypes, clothing from leftover materials or returned and refreshed activewear, in circulation - and give them a new owner at an attractive price.
That is why we’ll be offering from today onwards these products at a reduced price in our newly launched ZeroWaste Shop that's part of our webshop.
Our ZeroWaste Shop is a key part of our holistic approach to sustainability and is a key initiative of our Climate Neutral Certification emission reduction plan (find out more about this year's reduction plan here).
The problem with waste in the fashion industry
Did you know that the textile industry produces 148 million tons of textile waste every year? And a big part of that, around 13 million tons annually, comes actually from manufacturers and retailers themselves. Why?
Overproduction
Due to fast fashion huge amounts of clothes are produced at record speed, worn only as long (or rather, as short) as it is trendy, and are then being discarded. On top of that, many of these clothes are actually never sold, about 30%.
Burning clothes
Another common practice in the fashion industry is to burn clothes. Many fast fashion brands do this to get rid of clothes that they can’t sell and it’s also not uncommon among luxury brands who want to keep exclusive access to their products.
Besides, many clothes that have very small blemishes or defects and that are not “perfectly perfect” are incinerated and never get the chance to be worn by anyone.
It is indeed cheaper to discard the clothes before even giving them a life and burning stock has proven to be the most cost-effective way.
What’s the impact on the planet? When burning clothes, CO2 and other gases are released into the atmosphere contributing to harming our health and warming the atmosphere. Adding the fact that nowadays most clothes are made from plastics like polyester, burning them also releases microplastic microfibers into the atmosphere.
The issue with recycling
Though we so much want to believe it, the reality is that the majority of clothes that exist today are not recyclable. And that is due to the fact that most clothes are made from a blend of fabrics and that there is a lack of adequate and at-scale recycling technology - which means that disposed clothes oftentimes end up in landfills rather than in a recycling station. We simply can’t afford to trust that all our clothes will be recycled - that may only happen well into the future, but we need to act now.
How we achieve zero waste
To tackle the waste problem at the very root, at Tripulse we design our activewear for timelessness and longevity over fast-changing trends, cherry-pick our materials, and produce only as much as we believe can be realistically sold. And those pieces that are prototypes or that have slight blemishes we sell as part of our ZeroWaste initiative.
Luckily, we work with material and production partners that produce high quality materials and garments so we have relatively few items with any blemishes to begin with. But 100% perfection is almost impossible when creating physical products, even when having extremely high quality standards in place. And as part of our extensive product development process, we always create prototypes for testing purposes. And to prevent these products from not finding an owner and going to waste, we want to offer these to you for a reduced price.
But we can’t do this alone. We also need you, our dear community, to dare to try out “perfectly imperfect” activewear items, to give them the life and love they deserve and to wear them with pride.
The future is ZeroWaste
I believe it’s time to change how we think about fashion and activewear - to create quality pieces not only with the most sustainable materials, life cycle and design principles in mind (more on these here), but to also make sure we leave nothing behind and use everything there is. Simply leave zero waste.
If we eat an apple with some blemishes, or wear a pair of sneakers that shows the signs of age, why not giving life to a wonderful piece of “imperfectly perfect” sustainable activewear?
Help us achieve zero waste and start by exploring our newly launched ZeroWaste Shop.
I’d love to hear from you. If you have any questions, just leave them in the comments below and I’ll get back to you.
With love,
Franziska (founder of Tripulse)
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