Post Carbon Lab: DJ Turns Your Clothes into Wearable Trees
By affixing live algae to garments Post Carbon Lab turns your wardrobe into a carbon sink.
Post Carbon Lab
Post Carbon Lab has developed a means of affixing algae to clothes in order to turn wearable objects into a carbon sink. This is an expression of their theory of Regenerative Sustainability Activism, which advocates proactive engagement from an industrial entry point. Essentially, it is about making sustainability as easy and accessible as daily conveniences like putting on clothes and commuting.
Contributors:
A rose by any other name... could be called denim overalls once DJ's had her way with them.
Do you want to take your Poison Ivy cosplay to a new level? Are you interested in offsetting the carbon you exhale through the carbon your jumper inhales? Well, finally, we can turn your closet into a plant you can wear. Really.
Post Carbon Lab is the brainchild of Dian-Jen Lin (DJ) and Hannes Hulstaert, born of the recognition that the fashion industry is rotten from the roots on up. The inherent motivations in contemporary fashion houses- to make clothes cheaply, so we care for them poorly, and they break down easily, which incentivize us to get new products quickly- are literally destroying the planet through enormous carbon outlays (among other things) and teaching us all the wrong lessons about how we value with our things.
DJ sought to upend that process, which led her to rethink the idea of our relationship with clothes along with the clothes themselves. Post Carbon Lab affixes organic algae to textiles, in this case clothes, resurrecting them into organic, living things. The algae processes sunlight into glucose through photosynthesis, and in doing so removes carbon from the atmosphere and creates oxygen as a bi-product. What was dead lives again.
But, there are strings attached (sorry, couldn't help it). Once the clothes go through the regenerative process they need to be cared for as you would any other plant, allowing them proper sunlight and a bit of moisture now and again- DJ says simply putting them in the bathroom when you shower occasional does the trick.