Fabrics Have An Impact
- climate crisis
- Jul 20, 2020
- 2 min read
Learn about styptic fibres and their detrimental effects on our planet.
When I am shopping for sustainable clothing I’ve built a little checklist in my brain for what to look for… one of those things being the fabric. The material of your clothing can be a huge contributor to its carbon footprint therefore making it so important to be educated about different fabrics. In this post I share about three different synthetic fibres and their immense impact on the planet.
Polyester
Polyester is a synthetic fibre made from petroleum. It's key component is a non renewable carbon intensive resource making its carbon footprint, from the very beginning, a huge one. Every year more than 70 million barrels of oil used to make polyester. Because of its origin polyester is not biodegradable and like plastic doesn’t break down but apart. Not only is it's after-life stomping on our planet but what happens when the item is in your hands also plays a role. Synthetic fibres release microplastics when they are washed. It is estimated that there were 15-51 TRILLION microplastics floating in our ocean in 2019 and that will only get worse as the years go on. Washing your clothes is inevitable but washing them less and using cool gadgets like a Cora ball can significantly reduce the number of plastics entering our oceans.
Rayon
Rayon IS made from plants but there are two major reasons why it is on this list: it's production and it's sourcing. Rayon is produced using a variety of chemicals which puts workers at direct risk of nerve damage, heart attack, and stroke. It's why Rayon is only made in China, India, and Indonesia because those regulations would never fly in the United States or other more standardized parts of the world. Not only does those chemicals put the works at risk daily, it also effects the eco systems in that area. It poisons all life in the waters and therefore takes away from communities that rely on that land. It’s sourcing is down the gutters too.. while the fabric rayon uses 70 million trees every year, of the trees it cuts down it actually only uses 30% of the tree itself. Talk about being wasteful!
Nylon
Nylon is a material derived from crude oil and is essentially plastic. The production of nylon actually creates “nitrous oxide”, a greenhouse gas which is 300x worse than co2. I shutter to that fact every time I read it. As goodonyou.com says “nylon is a thirsty material” and contaminates the water through cooling the fabric and the dying process alone is responsible for the loss of water security in developing countries and is poisoning life around areas that create such material. Nylon like all synthetic fibres is not biodegradable and therefore will take up space in our landfills and will see the world for much longer than you.
Part two of this article will be coming out soon explaining some fabrics that are positive and maybe don't benefit the environment but that are conscious and one with mama earth. Looking at fashion as a whole can be overwhelming, so it's important to break up the topic and dive deep into the issues.
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