Pants on Fire

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Textiles are all around us. We live in them, sleep on them, sit on them, walk on them, live in houses filled with them. It’s one of the biggest industries in the world. But it’s also one with a big problem and, at least for consumers in the United States, a largely invisible one - textile waste. Today, we’re tearing the very shirt off your back to explore the old is new approach to textiles that could eliminate millions of tons of garbage a year.

And hey, while you’re here… maybe you want to donate to the show and get some amazing Outside/In gear? Yeah? Yeah. All the deets are here.

When you’re a home sewer, you have the time to be economical about how you place and cut pattern pieces. But even so, you still end up with a lot of scraps. Zero waste design aims to make clothes that produce little to no waste. There’s no one way to do it. Some people like Timo Risannen try to design clothing that use a whole piece of fabric. If you’re used to making clothes from standard sewing patterns, these zero waste patterns can be a challenge to decipher.

a look inside just one of the bins of scraps

a look inside just one of the bins of scraps

Timo Risannen’s endurance shirt and leggings patterns.

Timo Risannen’s endurance shirt and leggings patterns.

Outside/In was produced this week by:

Outside/In was produced this week by Erika Janik and Sam Evans-Brown with help from Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis,  and Jimmy Gutierrez.

Special thanks to Elizabeth Cline, Rachel Faller, and Timo Risannen.

Music from this week’s episode came from Blue Dot Sessions.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

If you’ve got a question for our Ask Sam hotline, give us a call! We’re always looking for rabbit holes to dive down into. Leave us a voicemail at: 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). Don’t forget to leave a number so we can call you back.

And oh hey, donate to the show during our awesome fund drive and get some cool swag … like a button and socks.

The Family Business

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The Family Business

The Sununus are one of New Hampshire's grandest families. John H. Sununu was governor and White House Chief of Staff. One of his sons John E. Sununu was a U.S. congressman and senator, and another Chris Sununu is governor today.  In their roles of political power, all of these men have faced a different landscape with regards to climate change, and what it means to be a Republican. Today, we track the party's evolution on the subject, through the frame of this one family.

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Hunting The Night Parrot

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Hunting The Night Parrot

For a long time, the elusive night parrot of the Australian outback was believed to be extinct. Then, an experienced birder with a reputation for dubious finds offered up foolproof evidence that the bird is still alive: photographs, feathers, and birdsong that he promises is the real deal. This week on the podcast, we're featuring our Australian podcast pal Ann Jones, host of ABC's Off-Track, as she heads out into the bush to try and capture sound from a bird few have ever heard.

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10x10: Under the Ice

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10x10: Under the Ice

In our series 10X10, we examine places that might not seem all that interesting... places like your typical frozen pond.  Sure, on the surface it's a wind-swept desert of crunchy snow and frigid temperatures, but drill a few inches down though, and you'll discover a world turned upside-down. In this episode, we give the down low on bizarre properties of water, fish that thrive in a capped-off environment, and long beards of algae clinging to the underside of a secret ecosystem few have ever explored.

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Leave No Stone

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Leave No Stone

Outdoorsy types are the among the biggest ambassadors of Leave No Trace, a set of principles and best practices for sharing and conserving wilderness areas. But while most people agree on the broad strokes - DON'T SCREW UP NATURE! - sorting out the details can be an emotional and argumentative affair... especially when it comes to rocks.

Episode photo courtesy of Paul St. Cyr.

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32 Is the New 40

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32 Is the New 40

The 40-hour workweek is as American as apple pie, and it’s been around almost just as long. So, is it finally time to re-think our Monday-through-Friday lifestyle? Producer Jimmy Gutierrez looks into the history of work culture, where it’s being challenged, and makes the argument that we ALL should be working less, you know, to save the planet.  

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Falling Doesn't Count

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Falling Doesn't Count

Here's a humdinger of a thought experiment: How fast could people go before the combustion engine and other technologies drastically increased the speed of the human race? And how did they pull it off? Skis? Sled-dogs? Catapults? From ancient horseriders and viking ships to primitive luges and "Russian Mountains", the Outside/In team researches all sorts of old-fashioned methods of locomotion and presents biggest the speed trial of the millenium.

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Rake and Ride

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Rake and Ride

Pirate trails are everywhere: the pioneers of mountain biking built them on private land, public land and everything in between. They were built by riders just looking for a place to take their new bikes, and in the process they simply appropriated land that they wanted for their trails.

But what happens when the evolution of a sport threatens the very thing that made it so attractive in the first place? 

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