Our goal with Human Practices was to gather as much information from society as possible and rather than have a plan set into stone from the get-go, let what we learn shape our work further to ensure that this project finds the right place where it fits into society. Through our work we had many pivotal moments and bloody truths revealed to us. Naturally a few stood out and one of those, that was presented by scientists at RISE(Research Institute of Sweden), came to define our Human Practices work. They first introduced us to the waste ladder from whence we learned that even though recycling is a hugely important step towards a circular textile economy, it is not the most effective process available in a sustainability context.
Since our lab work was focused on recycling, the 3rd best option, we decided to dedicate our Human Practices work towards the 2nd and 1st options, re-use and minimizing consumption. Through our research we saw that there exists a large gap in knowledge between scientists, industries, fashion designers and the average citizen. This is in our opinion, the largest threat to the environment from a textile (and consumption) perspective. Connecting these pieces, filling this knowledge gap that we identified, is exactly where our Human Practices work fits into society.
Our work was categorized in three different parts, all heavily integrated with each other, our project and society. They are displayed here below with an introductory text to the work we have compiled under these different sections.
Project Integration
Here we have summarized all our contacts, our communication with them, and what we learned and thus integrated to our project. This process has been long and iterative, and our focus is here to involve you as the reader in the raw data we have processed using the easiest possible method. To do this we figured that, as far as we could, conducting interviews and visual representation was one of the better approaches.
Science communication
Here we have summarized all the work that we did in order to spread the information that we have learned and compiled under the sustainability tab, as well as more information about iGEM, our lab work and Synthethic biology in general. This has been directed and adapted to both individuals, clothing stores and the government to integrate our work with every part of society. We have also described to you the detail of our planning and design behind the educational and outreach work as well as the results of how it affected both our local and global society.
Collaborations
We were happy to have two great collaborations during our project. One of those was the SynthEthics Initiative, which was created by iGEM Lund already in 2019 and is a platform to discuss ethical concerns regarding GMOs. Another collaboration we had during our project was The Transcriptome, which we started together with the Swiss team iGEM UNIL. This is a blog platform where science is shared in multiple languages. For more information, check out our collaborations tab!
Sustainable
Here we have summarized everything we have learned from our many contacts with society. Focus is here laid on the problem that is today posed upon the environment and humanity by the textile industry. We have also compiled all the Best Tips from our contacts on how to direct every part of society towards a more sustainable future regarding textiles.
- [1] H. De Motte and L. S. Bour, ‘Mot en textil cirkulär ekonomi – Resumé av forskningsläget forskningsläget’, 2019.
- [2] S. Roos et al., ‘white paper on textile recycling’. Accessed: Oct. 24, 2020. [Online]. Available: www.mistrafuturefashion.com.
