Saturday, September 4, 2010

Recycled Bride

When first seeing the blog's name Travis didn't seem to think it sounded very flattering, but RecycledBride blog has tons of information on ways to make your wedding enviro-concious. Check out their post on "Why Wedding Recycling Matters". It pretty much sums out our thought process for our big day and provides some stats to back it up.
Here is a quick quote:
      
"Have you ever thought about the journey of a typical white wedding dress from its creation to its arrival at your local bridal shop? Most wedding gowns begin their lives as huge rolls of raw, tan-colored fabric that must be bleached white. The bleaching process is ugly, consuming massive amounts of water and using harmful industrial chemical compounds that poison factory workers and the environment. Some wedding dresses are made of petrochemical-based synthetic fabrics like polyester, taffeta, rayon or nylon, and almost all of them are lined with synthetic material.  Most are made in China or South America, which means that fair labor and fair trade standards aren’t likely to be upheld, and the workers who “hand sew and bead” your fancy dress are likely not earning a living wage. And just imagine the carbon emissions generated when we package and transport enough of these dresses to outfit 2.4 million American brides each year!

Now what if out of those 2.4 million brides, just half decided to resell their dresses? What kind of impact would 1.2 million less wedding dresses a year have on our collective carbon footprint? And what if just half of those women re-sold the dresses again after their weddings, effectively creating a chain reaction of wedding dress reducing, reusing and recycling? And what about the 9.6 million bridesmaids dresses, the decorations, the accessories? I think you can see where I’m going with this."

 Just a little something to chew on. Save the dates are in the works....