The Future In Fabric

A variety of products can be made from forms of polyester: t-shirts, blankets, rope, conveyor belts, and bottles. It is widely used in clothing items, which you may notice by looking at the tags in your closet. However, this isn’t a particularly good thing.

Most polyesters are non-biodegradable, meaning that it may take anywhere from 20 and 200 years to break down if it’s put into the landfill. Polyester is partially derived from oil, which is a major source of pollution. In the United States alone, the oil and gas industry emits about 8 million metric tons of methane (a greenhouse gas) into the air per year.

Large amounts of water are used for cooling in the energy-intensive process used to produce polyester. This can be dangerous in areas of water scarcity, resulting in reduced access to clean drinking water. Not to mention, the excess water from production is full of chemical dyes that can cause harm to plants, animals, and humans.

If all of this wasn’t enough, polyester also releases microplastics through use and especially during washing. Each washing cycle may release over 700,000 mini plastic fibers into the environment. Microplastics add to pollution and are harmful to marine life when ingested.

Some of the most common uses for acrylic fabric are sweaters, hats, gloves, and area rugs. It’s known for its warmth, hence its use in winter clothing. The environmental and health impacts may not give you as warm of a feeling.

Acrylic production involves highly toxic chemicals that can be dangerous to the health of factory workers. The key ingredient, acrylonitrile, can enter the wearer’s body through skin contact or inhalation. Imagine that, wearing a certain fabric could be harmful to your health!

Additionally, acrylic is not easily recycled and can lay in a landfill for up to 200 years before biodegrading, similar to its synthetic sibling, polyester. Estimates suggest that as much as 20% to 35% of all primary source microplastics in the marine environment are fibers from use of synthetic clothing.

So, acrylic production and use is harmful to the health of humans, the environment, and animals. What more convincing do you need to avoid buying it?

Cotton is one of the most common fabrics used in clothing. It’s super breathable and probably makes up most of the blue jeans and t-shirts in your closet. Conventional cotton production poses many problems for people and the environment.

It takes 1,931 liters of irrigation water and 6,003 liters of rainwater to produce enough cotton for a t-shirt and pair of jeans. The excess water is then polluted with chemicals and dyes. These hazardous materials are expensive to dispose of properly, so many companies end up polluting the riverways instead so their products can remain cheap.

Conventional cotton consumes 16.1% of the world’s insecticide sales and 5.7% of global pesticides. These chemicals increase global warming impact and harm our soil health, water supplies, and the health of farmers.

An example of the “true cost” of cotton production can be seen in the Aral Sea basin, which was sucked dry in 2014 due to the amount of water needed in the cotton production process. Commenting on the incident, environmental activist Vandana Shiva stated that “the fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world, causing human misery, enormous cost of life and gigantic environmental devastation.”