“In order to live sustainably within the Earth’s carrying capacity, humans need to maintain the health of the Earth’s ecosystems (Robertson 2017). The fashion industry has been one of the major contributors to pollution on Earth (McFall-Johnsen, 2019) and as designers, it has become one of our main priorities to find solutions that go beyond aesthetics and focus on positive practices to the environment.

In recent years eco-printing and plant pounding are gaining popularity as sustainable methods to color and print textiles (WGSN, 2020). Each year significant numbers of flowers from temples of worship and special occasions are disposed after a single-use. Such disposal of waste creates problems like eel and worm development, water and land pollution (Whelan 2009) which affects nature’s ecosystems. Through this project, I was inspired to explore the techniques of pounding flora onto fabric to produce prints as a value-added use for the worldwide problem of floral waste. I hope in the future this project can empower and inspire others to experiment and adapt to sustainable design practices to help reduce the carbon footprint the fashion industry has on the environment.

McFall-Johnsen, M (2019). The fashion industry emits more carbon than international flights and maritime shipping combined. Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/fast-fashion-environmental-impact-pollution-emissions-waste-water-2019-10

Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability principles and practices 2nd edition, Earthscan Routledge

WGSN (2020) Sustainability & Innovation: Naturally Derived ”