Your birthday suit may be the most environmentally friendly ensemble you own, but it rarely meets the dress code. Green is everybody's color, and shades of shamrock on St. Patrick's Day aren't going to cut it. Sustainable and organic fabrics, as well as thrift-store finds and other recycled clothing options, make dressing green an easy part of your routine.

 

Photo: WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong/Flickr

 

Recycled clothing: If you have enough common sense to wear clothes on a daily basis, this should come fairly easily. The average American throws away 67.9 pounds of clothing and other textiles a year. That's more than 10 million tons — 20 trillion pounds — of defunct fashion trends in U.S. landfills (just imagine the sheer volume of stirrup pants — oh, the humanity) every year, about 4 percent of our total landfill content. And the saddest part is not that most of us have moved on from shoulder pads; it's that more than 90 percent of the textiles thrown out are recyclable. Thrift stores are the easiest and most cost-effective way to recycle clothing; you can get a cheap, new (-to-you) outfit, and your discards will make some other trashionista very happy. Other textile recyclers or charities make sure your clothes go where they're needed most, whether to poorer nations or to the needy here and abroad. And there are still other ways to recycle. You can make a shirt out of an old bed sheet, or a dress out of curtains, or curtains out of a dress. The possibilities are almost endless.

 

Environmentally and socially conscious clothing retailers: If you're buying clothes new, consider all the energy that went into getting those items into the store — including human energy. When possible, don't support companies that use sweatshops. This is not always easy or cheap — labels don't necessarily advertise unfair labor practices — but it's well worth the effort. Look for Fair Trade, or, to be sure that even items "Made in the USA" were produced humanely, check for the UNITE union label. To downsize your closet's carbon footprint, buy from environmentally friendly companies like Rapanui, which uses only renewable energy, or Patagonia, which offers a handy recycling program. For more green and Fair Trade businesses, check the National Green Pages.

 

Green fashion: When a trend has been explored by "Project Runway," you can probably officially say it's "sweeping the nation." Organic fabrics and natural dyes don't pollute the way chemical-laden synthetics do, and they're less likely to irritate your skin. The animal lover in you may also like the vegetarian and vegan clothing options that are out there — cute and furries get to keep their clothes, and you can show that you have more taste than tofu.