By Catherine Somerville of Sustainable Wallingford

Continuing the theme of carrying out an examination of your home, have you considered not just looking at where you can replace plastic, but at your wardrobe?

You may have embarked on a diet and lost weight or' as fashions change, there may be clothes hiding, unworn, at the back of the wardrobe.

The only sure way to sort out clothes is to take everything out of the wardrobe and check each item.

If it fits and you like it – keep it.

You could sell the remaining clothes and put the money towards a new outfit, you could take them to your favourite charity shop so they can get the money instead, or you could reinvent the clothes if you are good with a sewing machine.

Or, you could organise a clothes swap event with some friends.

Contact all your friends, tell them you are getting rid of clothes that don’t fit or you don’t want.

Invite them along and tell everyone they have to bring at least one outfit of their own that they are willing to swap.

If you have a friend who is good at sewing and who is willing to do the alterations, you are really in business.

This type of swapping is called swishing and is great fun.

You get at least one new outfit from it, as do your friends, and it keeps loads of clothes out of landfill.

Anything left/ not swapped can be either taken home again or donated to a charity shop.

Then you can plan the next swap event because I guarantee everyone will go home to look in their wardrobes to see what else is lurking at the back unworn for at least two years.

This kind of event could be extended to shoes, children’s clothes or even men’s clothes.

What fun it could be getting some of the guys to model the outfits.

Fast fashion.

A recent report on fashion in the UK found that every tonne of clothing currently in use is responsible for 1.7 tonnes of waste (1,000kg) and 23.2 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

It also has a water footprint per tonne of 7,060 cubic metres (a cubic metre is 1,000 litres).

And if that doesn’t put you off, the abuse of some workers in the fast fashion industry will.

Save your money. Put it into an ISA or your holiday account – you look amazing in what you’re wearing anyway.