Thrifting for Fibers
- Elisha Marie G.
- Aug 23, 2018
- 7 min read
Updated: Aug 25, 2018
Silk this, linen that.
Lately, I’ve been speaking a lot about my secondhand, natural fiber gems.
The soft touch, little to free price tag… I can’t get enough!
Wanting to learn more about natural fibers to better understand the hype over them to synthetic, I did research on the environmental impacts.
I've learned from Envormation, whose mission is to
"enable consumers and businesses to easily access and understand science based information on the environmental footprint of products and services,"
that the largest environment impact from a garment of natural or synthetic material,
is during the production process and use (washing and maintaining).
The distribution (transport and storage) and disposal of a garment have a
comparatively low impact on the environment (Envormation)
I was surprised by the claim production of a natural fiber has comparative environmental impacts as synthetic fibers.
This is mostly due to the land and water consumption during production of natural fibers, the dying of fibers that involve chemicals, and the manufacturing process of raw materials.
Throughout this blog, I share what I’ve discovered about some of the most common natural fibers used in fashion and compare the environmental impacts to the synthetic fibers- nylon and polyester.
For my visual learners::::
I’ve found short, 2-5 min videos detailing the production process of each fiber. My husband and I had a lot of fun watching and learning all the cool things about fibers. They’re definitely worth the watch!
Let us kick things off with my favorite fiber currently in my wardrobe- linen!
Linen
The Sustainable Design Award organization informs us linen is made of flax which grows in cooler temps and doesn’t require extensive irrigation like other natural fibers, avoiding environmental impact associated with water consumption (SDA)
Even so, the traditional processing of flax, water retting, is linked to water pollution.
Nutrients from the decaying flax stalks promote high levels of BOD, a conventional pollutant in the U.S. Clean Water Act
Chemicals are also used in processing linen once it’s harvested. Pure white linen is bleached, and dyed linen involves a chemical process that is harmful to the environment, as well as the workers.
"However, the production of linen requires less water and fares better in terms of water toxicity than cotton. As a result, overall, the environmental impact of the linen (flax) shirt is considered to be lower than that of the cotton shirt" (Envormation)
Watch a short 2 min video of linen production from farm to fabric, here
Cotton
Cotton is a natural fiber where labeling is extremely important.
“Conventional cotton is one of the most chemical-laden crops grown in the world”onegreenplanet
Okay, so, how about just buying organic cotton.
Turns out, organic cotton is extremely labor intensive (onegreenplanet)
Well, what other labels are there?!
Cotton labeled “fair-trade organic” ensures the cotton was produced without chemicals and under fair working conditions.
I am looking forward to paying closer attention to garment labels when thrifting, and notice the brands labeling with fair-trade and organic cotton.
I feel this logic should be applied to all fabrics, search for organic and fair-trade labels. For some reason, though, the strain of importance of these labels on cotton was more so than any other fiber.
Learn more about the cotton production here
Wool
Wool is made from sheep, alpaca, rabbit, and/or goat hair. It can be made into anything from business suits to active wear.
The International Wool Textile Organization claims:
“For wool garments, greasy wool production on sheep farms contributes most to greenhouse gas emissions... The dominant greenhouse gas is methane which is emitted as a by-product of the natural digestive process that enables sheep and other ruminant animals to thrive on grasses that provide insufficient nutrition for most animals” (IWTO)
Learn more on how wool is processed here
A new thing I’ve learned this past week is that
cashmere is made of wool!
A video of cashmere being made can be watched here
Silk
Silk is not a vegan fabric!
The silkworm is killed during the silk fiber process by being boiled to death before transforming into a moth.
I had no idea!
There are “Peace Silk” fabrics, which allow the silkworm to become a moth and leave the cocoon before processing the silk.
The process of how silk is made can be watched here
Velvet
A material not often mentioned in the sustainable fashion community, is velvet!
Velvet is made from the raw materials we all know and love.
The most expensive velvet is made from silk and can date back centuries. Velvet is also made from cotton, linen, wool, and polyester.
A video by JB Martin, a brand making velvet since 1832, explains that velvet is only as good as the raw material it is made from.
Watch the video by JB Martin here
I currently don’t own any velvet. But, after learning more about it, I cannot wait to scour the thrift shops for something special!!
Bamboo
From houseware to active wear, bamboo is considered an environmental-friendly material used for an array of purposes. However, Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment claims
“Bamboo sustainability credentials are questionable. Turning bamboo into a fiber requires significant chemical use” (OCSE).
It's interesting that bamboo is claimed to be Eco-friendly, yet has such a high impact on the environment.
Learn more about Bamboo environmental impacts, here
Leather
Most fashion leather is made from cow skin after the cow is killed for meat. This skin would otherwise waste and naturally decompose, but a process called “tanning” is essential to keep leather from biodegrading in our closets.
Even though leather is made from a dead animal, as is silk, it is not considered a natural fiber by most, because of its large environmental impact.
“The EPA has acknowledged that livestock pollution is the greatest threat to our waterways. Most leather produced in the U.S. is chrome-tanned. All wastes containing chromium is considered hazardous by the EPA" (PETA)
Learn more about leather production and watch the tanning process, here
Did you know:
Suede is leather with the flesh side rubbed to make a velvety nap
Oh, the things we learn….
The final fabric we’ll be discussing before learning of synthetic fibers, is Hemp.
Hemp
Hemp is one of the most Eco-friendly materials found in my research.
It is a weed, giving it a high-yield and the durability to grow in an array of climates and soils. It improves the soil it is grown in, known to absorb metals and radioactive contamination (CBS News 2017)
Hemp can also be grown without herbicides or pesticides, although not every hemp farm chooses to do so.
Hemp material is as versatile as synthetic materials, manipulated to be strong for backpacks and shoes, or soft for infant clothing and undergarments.
The manufacturing process requires no chemicals or high-tech machinery.
And no, one cannot get high on hemp.
Watch the low-tech, environmental-friendly process of hemp, here
Synthetic Fibers
Gaining popularity during WW2 when the fashion industry was in search of a replacement for silk, American chemist Wallace Carothers invented nylon, history’s first synthetic fiber, in early 1930s. Since, synthetic fibers have taken over the fashion industry.
Nylon
Nylon first hit the market as women’s stockings in 1938, the year after inventor Wallace Carothers committed suicide. Advertised as “artificial silk” the invention came during a time when world markets were concerned with conserving raw materials.
The company producing nylon at the time, DuPont, advertised their new product as a “no-run” stocking, better than silk.
According to the Science History Institute,
“Everywhere the stockings appeared, newspapers reported on “nylon riots” in which hundreds, sometimes thousands, of women lined up to compete for a limited supply of hosiery. Perhaps the most extreme instance occurred in Pittsburgh in June 1946, when 40,000 people lined up for over a mile to compete for 13,000 pairs of nylon stockings” (SHI)
Nylon had quickly dominated the fashion industry, knocking cotton and wool from most common material.
More on the history of the first synthetic fiber, nylon, here
Polyester
The claim is that polyester production is not worse for the environment compared to natural fibers.
The Natural Resources Defense Council says this is because
the water consumption in producing poly is much lower than for natural fibers, sometimes little to none (NRDC)
Most of the environmental impact occurs when we wash our polyester clothes and tiny plastic microfibers enter our water system.
An article published by the Guardian states
“polymers don’t break down easily and account for about 10% of the debris in the ocean”
So, as it seems, natural materials have a large environmental impact during production, while synthetic fibers environmental impact is largely in the use and disposal.
This video by Lana Llama I found discussing polyester has biases since she promotes her brand and the materials her brand uses. However, this video also discusses a realistic approach to poly materials that I can appreciate. (The link starts 3mins in)
Polyester doesn’t biodegrade like natural materials do, but, companies are figuring ways to better recycle polymer waste.
Recycled Polymers
Recycled and up-cycled materials eliminate the need to produce new raw materials.
Recycled polyester is made from recycled plastic bottles, keeping these bottle from landfills.
It requires less energy than virgin fibers, yet, costs more to process.
As Jerry Bauer from ‘Wear Ever Recycling’ warned us,
“Recycling is expensive and ultimately unsustainable”
National Geographic has a great video describing the process of factory workers working with recycled plastic bottles to make polyester, here
Jerry had also mentioned that his company didn’t know what to do with windbreaker material. The broker ‘Wear Ever’ works with, Whitehouse & Schapiro, apparently does not recycle it.
“Nylon is not an easy or cheap material to recycle” Yet, they “are cheap to buy new” Guardian
This doesn’t mean some companies are not recycling it.
“Aquafil began developing a machine that can churn through most kinds of nylons, producing new threads ready to be re-purposed. These threads, called Econyl, are sold to American brands such as Outerknown and swimwear giant Speedo” (Guardian)
So, which fiber is best?
Social enterprise ‘Envormation’ states
“It is difficult to draw a simple conclusion as to which fabric has the lowest environmental impact overall, as textiles made from natural fibers often require more water (e.g. for irrigation) and more land than synthetic textiles. However, it would appear that natural fibers such as flax and hemp have an edge overall.” (Envormation)
It seems, on an environmental perspective, the continuum of natural fibers and synthetic fibers is not as far apart as marketing would want us to believe.
"In the vast majority of cases, textile production equipment is massive, complex, expensive and difficult to use effectively in its aim of manipulating millions of tiny particles of flexible units at a speed high enough to satisfy the demand for its products"
I believe the most environmental-friendly clothes we can own are the ones already in our closet. And hopefully, the next time we wear those fast fashion polyester clothes we fell in love with, we can do so without believing they are somehow "less-than" the other persons linen dress.
Because in the big picture of things, all fabrics create waste. It’s not so much the materials we wear that matters, but the amount and rate in which we buy and dispose them.
Thank you for learning with me this week and continue learning along on Thrift Ethics.
See you on the feed thrifters.
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