4 million tonnes is the amount of clothing that Europeans part with each year, according to ADEME (2022).
This colossal volume is explained by a phenomenon of overconsumption, but also by the premature aging of our clothes.
Wear, loss of luster or alteration, so many scars linked to rough maintenance which, in addition to damaging textiles, can be ineffective.
However, the way everyone uses their clothes plays a key role in the environmental impact of the fashion sector: according to the report
A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion's future
by the Ellen McCarthur Foundation (2017), doubling the number of times Wearing a piece would reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by its production by 44%.
The fact remains that taking care of your wardrobe is a skill in its own right, and on the way out.
“These skills were once learned in home economics schools and their transmission, in particular due to lack of time, has been broken”, recalls Pascale Allaert, consultant in linen and textile maintenance and best worker in France, cleaner, dresser, dyeing.
The expert sheds light on all these well-established habits to quickly put out of harm's way.
In video, eight gestures to adopt to take good care of your bed linen:
Trust the care label
First reflex before filling the drum of the washing machine: consult the label sewn inside your garment.
However, the washing instructions that appear there are in fact not always reliable.
Only the code of the French Labeling Committee for the Care of Textiles (or GINETEX™ internationally) guarantees its plausibility.
Registered trademark, its label is recognizable by the ® symbol and its 5 logos.
To use it, the company that manufactures the garment must carry out tests that certify that each indication is valid.
This labeling process is not mandatory and some brands are happy to avoid it.
There is no guarantee that the indications on the label have been verified.
Even when they have been designed according to the rules of the art, these maintenance instructions only take into account the main material of the garment, teaches us Pascale Allaert.
This can lead to unpleasant surprises, the fibers requiring sometimes opposite treatments.
“The best way to know how to do it is to refer to the composition, which must be mentioned on the garment,” advises the best worker in France.
Wash too cold
For less energy-consuming and more responsible clothing care, cold washing is widely recommended by public authorities.
However, it is not ideal for acting on stains: “Effective washing is based on the Sinnar circle, explains the maintenance expert.
You have to imagine a Camembert divided into four parameters: chemical (the washing product), mechanical (the drum), temporal and… Thermal.
Depending on whether you want to wash a cotton T-shirt or a cashmere sweater, you modulate these four actions.”
For example, to disinfect linen with a classic detergent, it will be necessary to wash it at 90 degrees.
To avoid having to resort to such heat, it will be necessary to add a chemical action by using a disinfectant product.
Recommended for delicate fibers, but less effective on stains, systematic washing at low temperature has another disadvantage according to Pascale Allaert: it encourages the proliferation of bacteria in the washing machine.
His advice?
"Clean your machine at least once a month by pouring 1 liter of white vinegar into the tank before running a very hot, empty cycle."
More eco-responsible than using a machine cleaner, this gesture also gets rid of limescale, which allows the machine to heat up more quickly, and improve washing quality.
Full screen
When the mentions ® or ™ are not mentioned on the label, the maintenance instructions are not contractual.
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Put everything in one basket
“Each type of linen has its own problem,” insists Pascale Allaert.
In terms of maintenance, it is therefore impossible to avoid case by case: there is no question of simply splitting your dirty laundry into two parts, light and dark or household linen and clothes.
Splitting your sorting as much as possible, while favoring several short cycles over washing in quantity, saves the fibers from temperature shocks and friction responsible for their erosion.
And thus prevent the white linen from tarnishing, or the sweaters from shrinking.
Making more machines, however, is contrary to the recommendations of the Agency for Ecological Transition.
In response, the expert raises another issue: "Is it less ecological to wash in several times, or to have to multiply the washes to catch a bad gesture?"
The debate is open.
Stick to one laundry...
To be relevant, sorting must imperatively be coupled with the use of a suitable product.
“For my domestic use, I have three detergents, explains Pascale Allaert.
One for white, containing oxygenating products and aggressive optical azura.
A second, liquid, for the colors.
The third, special wool, with neutral pH, is dedicated to black and all delicate fibers such as silk.
What about the homemade product alternative?
“It must be used in larger quantities to be really effective”, raises the specialist.
She advises favoring commercial products, which are more efficient and with formulations that are increasingly respectful of the environment.
...too much
Pascale Allaert also warns about respecting the doses indicated on the packaging of the washing product.
In 2020, the OpinionWay study for L'Arbre Vert revealed that 72% of French people were unaware that liquid detergents are more concentrated than in the past.
And therefore used more product than necessary to wash his clothes.
To act on stains, the best worker in France also recommends sobriety: "In most cases, applying dishwashing liquid and rubbing the area with a toothbrush before machine washing is more than enough".
And to conclude: “Above all, never salt, which fixes the molecules, nor hot water, which cooks them!”
What to question his own habits.