Join me on taking the recycling route to stylish clothes shopping, with ‘mindful consumption’ - Hayley Matthews

I've been seeing faux fur handbags popping up in lots of retailers just now, it's a sign of the colder weather to come (a fluffy handbag is always needed to keep warm in the colder months), but seriously you'll feel left out without one.

The White Company's faux fur tote bag

Looking like an ideal Christmas gift for a few people, I started to scour the internet for faux fur bags when I came across one that was made with 100 per cent recycled polyester with the lining also being from 100 per cent recycled polyester.

The light pink fluffy bag from The White Company, was advertised at a very reasonable £24 and was a lot more appealing to me than other brands who didn't seem to be as keen on sustainability or using recycled materials.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm keen on recycling materials, limiting waste and using clever tactics to reuse items. Yes I am that person you see with their leggings stitched up the rear instead of throwing them out. So as I dug deeper in to The White Company's catalogue "made with recycled materials" was very prominent and I was surprised how many items ticked all my sustainable and the recyclable boxes.

Lots of jackets, jumpers and bags all with recycled materials - lots of them!

So as my eyes were opened to the world of "Mindful Consumption" I wondered why more companies aren't being encouraged to use recycled materials.

With cotton so expensive these days eco fabrics and recycled polyesters are becoming so readily available that there really is no excuse to not use them in the production line - and for high quality end clothing too!

So as we're being encouraged to buy better and buy less, it's important we realise that it's not just a fad, it's to ensure we leave a sustainable planet for us all to rock about on with our faux fur handbags and recycled polyester leggings.

Using recycled materials is just a small part, combatting the plastic packaging issue is also huge as well as changing the way we shop.

When I took on a BBC reporting challenge a few years back to go plastic free and waste as little as possible, it stuck with me.

It's changed my perception and raised my awareness of how disposable we can be when it comes to consumerism.

It's not just the materials we use and discard but how they get to us, how far they've travelled, how much water has been used to make garments, how much fuel has been used to transport them and what have we destroyed in the process to obtain these materials? Think about that the next time you buy a new top.

So yes, there is so much to be aware of and think about when it comes to changing consumer behaviours and becoming aware of the hard work that many companies are putting in to making sure they can achieve targets set by the British Retail Consortium’s climate roadmap.

So when you're shopping for clothing and see phrases like; "achieving net zero carbon emissions,

reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing our sustainably sourced products", it's because people are busy squirrelling away in the background to make fashion and consumer items less harmful to the earth.

In an idea world many brands would have 100% of their products made with sustainably sourced recycled materials - surely this can be achievable so we have happy shoppers and a happy planet - forever.