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The Real Global Price of What You Wear, Part 5

Last updated January 12, 2025.

 
Colorful patterned fabrics, folded and stack together.
Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash.

Ever wonder what the names of different synthetic fabrics mean? Polyester, fleece, Spandex the list goes on. Over the years synthetic fabrics have come a long way in appearance, texture, and wearability. They can be very durable, although most fast fashion producers tend to make them cheaply with minimal thread count and stitching. Most synthetic fabrics are made from plastic fibers, which are made from oil, which comes from fossil fuels. Synthetic materials use about 342 million barrels of petroleum annually.

Unfortunately, the true problem is the fact that we are overproducing clothing in the Western world. There is so much clothing that all of the humans on the planet can’t even use it all.

Today we’ll review the most common types of synthetics used in fast fashion and textile production. If you want a refresher on natural fabrics, read Part 3 and Part 4.

Polyester

Invented in 1941, polyester is plastic fabric. It requires a lot of energy to make, uses fossil fuels, and uses carcinogenic substances to produce. “It is made by refining crude oil or natural gas, breaking it into chemicals, and creating a polymer that is extruded and spun into fibers.” The polymer, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), is the same PET in a plastic bottle. Its petroleum base makes polyester flammable, so fabrics made from it must be treated with anti-flammable chemicals that are often toxic. China produces more than 75% of the world’s polyester fabric. These fabrics do not biodegrade and only a very small amount of them are recycled worldwide.1

“Polyester, the cheapest and most popular of fabrics, is petroleum based; nearly seventy million barrels of crude are required to make the virgin polyester used for textiles each year.” -Dana Thomas, Fashionopolis2

Polyester also affects climate change. “MIT calculated that the global impact of producing polyester alone was somewhere between 706 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, or about what 185 coal-fired power plants emit in a year.”3 We should stop production of this material for the most part, because the global impacts just aren’t worth it. There’s already enough on the planet to recycle and reuse. We don’t need any new polyester fabric.

“Producing polyester releases two to three times more carbon emissions than cotton, and polyester does not break down in the ocean.”4

Colorful rolls of satin fabrics.
Photo by v2osk on Unsplash.

Fleece

Most fleece is a type of polyester, so its origin is also plastic (and oil).
Because it is breathable, fast-drying, and allows moisture to evaporate it is used in sportswear and winter wear. It’s also what those $4 cozy, fluffy, fleece blankets sold at large box stores are made from.

Although it is a vegan alternative to wool, fleece is a poor environmental choice because it sheds microfibers quickly while laundering. More on that toward the end of this article.

Pink and purple fleece clothing with magenta background.
Photo by Tania Melnyczuk on Unsplash.

Spandex (also called Lycra and Elastane)

Spandex is also called Lycra (a DuPont brand name), or Elastane. It was invented in 1959 and is prized for its elasticity. It is often combined with other fabrics to make apparel stretchy. Spandex is used mainly in athletic wear, swimsuits, yoga pants, skinny jeans, underwear, bras, and socks.

Companies make this fabric from a polyurethane base combined with other chemicals. While Spandex is not plastic, it still does not biodegrade in the environment. While not sourced from oil, the chemicals used in the production of spandex/elastane are potentially toxic to workers and perhaps even people who wear it.

Photo of about 7 one piece women's swimsuits in different colors, hanging from a woman's arm, a pair of goggles dangling from her hand.
Swimsuits are often made from spandex, nylon, or a blend. Photo by Malik Skydsgaard on Unsplash.

Nylon

Companies use Nylon, originally invented by DuPont, to make tights, stockings, sportswear, yoga pants, and other form-fitting clothing items. It is a polymer-based fabric (meaning plastic) made from a component of crude oil, hexamethylenediamine. It is energy-intensive and uses large quantities of water for cooling the nylon fabric fibers. That “water often carries pollutants into the hydrosphere surrounding manufacturing locations. In the production of adipic acid, which is the secondary constituent part of most types of nylon fabric, nitrous oxide is released into the atmosphere, and this is considered to be 300 times worse for the environment than CO2.”5 But it often makes strong, water-resistant fabrics.

Plastics

Some companies produce clothing made from straight plastic. One example is polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a high-strength thermoplastic material. Companies use PVC to produce transparent shoe heels, vinyl raincoats, synthetic leather, and many fashion accessories like handbags, belts, and shoes.6These materials often cannot be reused and are discarded. PVC is a known carcinogen, off-gasses for its entire lifetime, and it leaches toxins when it gets into the soil (landfill) or water (ocean).

Vegan or faux leather is sometimes made from polyurethane (PU). It was invented in Nazi Germany in 1937, and one of its uses was for mustard gas-resistant garments.7 As for toxicity, it depends on what chemicals were applied to the polyurethane in question, but most online sources indicate that PU is fairly safe.

Red snakeskin print PVC skirt, model wearing a black long-sleeved top but her upper and lower body are cropped.
PVC skirt from Shein.

Acrylic

Acrylic, invented in 1950, mimics wool. It is lightweight, warm, and soft. Companies use it in place of wool or blend it with wool or cashmere in order to reduce production costs. Producers make acrylic from the polymer polyacrylonitrile, which is a fossil fuel-chemical combination. Acrylic fabric pills easily and, like many synthetics, is highly flammable. The EPA found that inhaling polyacrylonitrile gives workers many health problems and may even be carcinogenic.8 

Navy blue acrylic sweater.
Sweater made from acrylic.

“Imagine a pair of yoga pants, or a fleece…try to imagine what they’re made of. It’s oil. They’re made of oil. Whether it’s polyester, fleece, spandex, elastane, nylon, or acrylic, our clothing is made, more and more, of crude oil that is turned into polymers…More than 60 percent of all of our textile fibers are now man-made synthetics, derived from oil.” -Tatiana Schlossberg9

Viscose Rayon

Viscose rayon is usually made from bamboo and eucalyptus. While those are plants, producers use so many heavy chemical treatments that most consider viscose rayon a synthetic. Companies market this fabric as “natural” and “sustainable” because bamboo, especially, grows quickly. But that is just greenwashing.

Companies sell viscose rayon under several names, such as bamboo, eucalyptus, modal, Lyocell, and Tencel. Producers make the fabric by “chemically dissolving wood from eucalyptus, beech, or bamboo trees,” and then reforming the chemical pulp into a fiber. Bamboo is a tough fiber and the chemical treatment is how they make it soft. These fabrics are a cheaper alternative to silk and cotton. But they have a huge environmental impact because they require a lot of energy and “has a higher global-warming impact than the manufacture of polyester and cotton.”10

Environmental Impact

Viscose rayon production uses large volumes of hazardous chemicals, including large amounts of bleach, sodium hydroxide, sulfuric acid, and carbon disulfide. The latter is “a neurologically toxic chemical that has a long history of causing insanity in exposed workers.”11 It can also cause reproductive problems. Further, the pulp mills sometimes release those chemicals into the environment. Many of the processing mills for rayon are in China, India, and southeastern Asian countries. 12

“The chemical usage to produce [viscose rayon] is so intense that it shouldn’t be considered natural at all.” -Tatiana Schlossberg13

This category of fabrics is a leading cause of deforestation, which is contributing to climate change and endangering wildlife. Manufacturers cut down between 120 million and 150 million trees annually to make clothing. Some of those trees are in endangered rainforests or ancient forests. Besides that, manufacturers also waste more than half of each tree during production.14

Better Types of Viscose Rayon

Look for the lyocell brand name of Lenzing Tencel, which is more sustainable than other fabrics in this category. “Tencel lyocell fabrics are cellulose fibers made from sustainably sourced wood pulp that is produced in a closed-loop system where the materials used are recycled with minimal waste and low emissions.” Tencel is biodegradable and requires less energy and water than cotton production.15

You can also seek out brands that partner with Canopy, the Forest Stewardship Council, or have Oeko-Tex safe-chemistry certifications (see Additional Resources below).16 

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has warned and/or fined many companies to stop falsely labeling rayon products as bamboo. Those companies include Amazon, Macy’s, Target, Walmart, and Leon Max, but there are more that participate in this practice. Marketing rayon as environmentally friendly is greenwashing at its worst; advertising it as bamboo is an outright lie and illegal.

Various colors and patterns of rolls of fabrics, sitting upright with a white backdrop.
Photo by Andreea Pop on Unsplash.

Synthetic Fabrics Shed Microplastics

Synthetic textiles are becoming more and more commonplace, especially as fast fashion continues to grow. Unfortunately, these synthetic fabrics often shed small plastic fibers known as microfibers or microplastics. Just by laundering our clothing, microplastics are entering and polluting our waterways. This is because water treatment facilities cannot remove them, so the fibers persist, and enter the ocean, the food chain, and eventually human bodies. “According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are 1.5 million tons of small pieces of what are known as microplastics entering the ocean each year, and as much as 34.8 percent of that pollution is coming from synthetic textiles.”17 It’s time to turn off the tap.

“What I actually want to say about synthetic fibers is that they are everywhere – not just in all of our clothes, but literally everywhere: rivers, lakes, oceans, agricultural fields, mountaintops, glaciers. Everywhere. Synthetic fibers, actually, may be one of the most abundant, widespread, and stubborn forms of pollution that we have inadvertently created.” -Tatiana Schlossberg18

Colorful and patterned fabrics, stacked vertically.
Photo by Kate Ware on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC 2.0).

Solutions

“It requires extensive amounts of energy to create textiles from plastic, which also releases petroleum and volatile particulate matter into the atmosphere.” -Leah Thomas, The Intersectional Environmentalist19

Most of the time, the clothing you buy is going to be a blend of either natural and synthetic fibers or a blend of synthetics. Chenille, for example, is usually a blend of fibers, including cotton, silk, rayon, and wool. Microfiber fabric is often a combination of polyester and nylon. Synthetics are so common today that we mostly overlook the fabric type listed on the tag. “Most consumers buy synthetics without even noticing. Polyester and nylon together make up almost 60 percent of all textiles manufactured globally, while cotton has shrunk to a quarter of the fiber market.”20

Today synthetics are better looking and more comfortable than in previous decades. And they are cheap! The cheapest fabrics to produce are polyester, nylon, acrylic, and conventional viscose rayon. The production of cotton and high-performing viscose rayon (modal and lyocell) costs a little more. Leather, silk, linen, high-quality cotton, cashmere, and wool are much more expensive than synthetics, so fashion designers use them less and less.21 But many synthetics used in clothing production are manufactured or treated with toxic and carcinogenic substances.22

Choose biodegradable plant-based fibers, such as cotton, linen, hemp, and wool over synthetics. Or animal-based fibers such as wool and silk. “It’s very hard to completely eradicate plastics from our lives, but we can reduce them significantly by choosing biodegradable fibers when available….biodegradable new materials, recycled fabrics, or secondhand textiles. Remember, there is no perfect sustainable lifestyle.”23

Corporations need to do better and stop producing cheap, fast fashion. As consumers, we can buy second-hand clothing. When we do need to buy new, we can choose to buy higher quality items. Since those types of articles are more expensive, we will automatically reduce the amount of clothing we buy. Corporations will pay attention if we buy less of something. If we all try to be more intentional with our clothing purchases, we can make a difference.

Thank you for reading, please share and subscribe!

 

Additional Resources:

Website, Forest Stewardship Council, the leader in sustainable forestry. Their purpose is “nurturing responsible forestry so forests and people can thrive. ”

Website, Canopy. People cut down 3.4 billion trees annually to make paper packaging and fabrics such as rayon and viscose. “Many of these trees come from the world’s most Ancient and Endangered Forests, integral for life on Earth.” This organization partners with brands to change that. Just ten suppliers produce seventy-five percent of all rayon. After fashion designer Stella McCartney partnered with Canopy, nine of those suppliers pledged that they would stop logging in rainforests.24

Website, Oeko-Tex, rigorously tests and certifies every component of the product, from the fabric to the thread and accessories, against a list of up to 350 toxic chemicals.

Article, “Microfibers & Textiles,” 5Gyres, accessed September 24, 2023.

Footnotes:

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The Real Global Price of What You Wear, Part 4

Last updated February 10, 2024.

Three raccoon dogs peek out from their small wire cages at a fur farm in Poland. The animals are curious about the photographers doing this nighttime investigation. Poland, 2015.
Three raccoon dogs peek out from their small wire cages at a fur farm in Poland. The animals are curious about the photographers doing this nighttime investigation. Poland, 2015. Photo courtesy of Andrew Skowron, We Animals Media.

Understanding whether natural or synthetic fabrics are better for the environment is confusing. As I mentioned in Part 3 of this article series, we need to stop the overproduction of all textiles. But we can make better choices about clothing purchases if we know where something came from, how it was sourced, and how it was created. Today, we will review the most common types of animal-based fabrics used in fashion.

Wool

Humans have used wool from sheep since about 10,000 BCE.10 “Wool is gorgeous and durable. It has the magical capacity to resist odors, wrinkles, and stains,” wrote Elizabeth L. Cline. It provides warmth and can last for many years. Today’s wools are less itchy, softer, and sometimes even machine washable. But it is not always the most sustainable option.

As of 2015, people raised more than 1 billion sheep around the world, producing 2.5 million pounds of raw wool. But if not cared for properly, sheep and goats can overgraze areas which lead to soil erosion and desertification. “Fertilizers and pesticides are often used on pastures and the sheep themselves, driving up wool’s chemical impacts.”11

Sheep release methane and other greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Sheep farming – like cattle farming – also uses large amounts of water and land. Some even identify wool as one of the worst environmental offenders on the market.

Merino Wool & Mulesing

Merinos, typically raised in Australia, have very soft wool. People have specifically bred them to have wrinkly skin because this means they can obtain more wool per animal. But animal rights advocates typically advise against merino sheep products because the sheep are essentially mutilated.

The wrinkles collect urine and moisture, which attracts flies. The flies lay eggs in the folds of skin, and the larvae (maggots) eat the sheep’s skin. To combat what is referred to as ‘flystrike,’ farmers use a cruel procedure called ‘mulesing.’ This is where they restrain the sheep and cut sections of their skin away without any painkillers or anesthetics. These wounds can get infected and kill the sheep. If the wounds heal, the skin forms scar tissue and creates a smooth surface that doesn’t create a moist environment for flystrike. This is an inhumane practice that should be outlawed.

Worse, “after the sheep become too old to produce wool efficiently, they are shipped to the Mideast to satisfy the huge Muslim demand for halal meat.” Companies do not usually ship them under humane conditions and many sheep die on the way there.12

Shearling

Most consumers believe that shearling is sheared wool – but it isn’t. It is sheepskin, meaning the sheep’s tanned skin with the wool still attached to it. Shearling refers to a young sheep, a yearling who has been shorn just once. A shearling garment is made from a sheep or lamb shorn before being slaughtered for meat. Some industry members call shearling ‘a byproduct of the meat industry.’ But it can take dozens of individual sheep skins to make just one shearling garment.

Recycled Wool Clothing

Buying clothing made from recycled wool is a very eco-friendly option. As Patagonia wrote on their website: “Wool is a natural fiber that insulates, breathes and lasts for a long time. Producing wool, however, is resource-intensive. It requires vast amounts of land for grazing sheep, water to clean the fiber, chemicals to treat the wool and dyes to color the finished product. We use recycled wool to extend the useful life of fiber that has already been produced. As a result, we can make clothing with the same great qualities as virgin wool at a fraction of the environmental cost.”13 Buy products made from recycled wool whenever possible.

A white newborn lamb looks up at the camera.
A newborn lamb looks up at the camera. If the lamb is male, he will be sent to slaughter for meat at a young age. If the lamb is female, she will be reared for the production of wool and future breeding. Photo courtesy of Andrew Skowron, We Animals Media.

Alpaca fleece

Alpacas are domesticated South American camelids that look like small llamas. Their fur is a very soft and warm fiber that is also durable and lightweight. It may even be more durable than cashmere. These animals are not killed for their fur, and many companies argue that producers take good care of alpacas.

However, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) did an undercover investigation and discovered workers abusing alpacas during the shearing process. Regardless of what you think of PETA, the video evidence is hard to refute. And it is disturbing to watch. This video was taken at Mallkini, the world’s largest privately owned alpaca farm, near Muñani, Peru. “Mallkini is owned by the Michell Group, the world’s largest exporter of alpaca tops and yarn and a supplier of major brands, including Anthropologie.”14 Hopefully many other companies have followed.

The Alpaca Owners Association, Inc. responded that they were shocked and appalled by the abuse in the video. “While there are good and bad practices in every industry, the investigation uses the most egregious video of alpacas being shorn poorly and inhumanely. Kind and compassionate alpaca owners and shearers throughout the world far outweigh practices like the one shown.”16

Be sure to check that the alpaca clothing you’re buying is from a reputable and cruelty-free producer. You may have to contact the company to verify this.

The face of a brown alpaca against a black background.
This alpaca is taking shelter from the rain at The Farm Animal Sanctuary, Evesham, Worcestershire, United Kingdom, 2022. Photo courtesy of James Gibson Photography / We Animals Media.

Cashmere

Cashmere is made from the soft undercoats of cashmere goats, mainly in China, Mongolia, northern India, and Iran. The fibers are very fine and delicate and feel almost like silk to the touch, and it is warmer and lighter than sheep’s wool. It is one of the most expensive forms of wool because the production and manufacturing process is complicated.17

But two things happened: world demand increased and Mongolia transitioned from a Communist economy to a freer market. So lower quality cashmere clothing entered the market. Also, herders quadrupled the number of goats from 5 million in the 1990s to 21 million by 2018.18 Goat herding clears entire grasslands which causes dust storms and air pollution. It sometimes also causes starvation of the goats.19

There are different grades of cashmere. Sometimes producers mix it with other fibers, which can make it less expensive. But not everyone agrees that this is a good thing. As New York Times writer Tatiana Schlossberg wrote, “Making cashmere a less-than-luxury item…puts the responsibility for making the right choice on the consumer, and that’s not fair. It’s not within your control how some company sources and produces its cashmere, or the size of the herd that they got it from. That should be the corporation’s burden – whether they pay more to source better or they pay for the associated down-the-line impacts – or governments should make sure they act responsibly. And that may make cashmere cost more (upfront, though the long-term health and environmental costs would be less).”20

Be sure to purchase sustainable cashmere. “When shopping for cashmere, shop with brands that are transparent and can reveal where they source their fiber and the steps they’ve taken to source it sustainably.”21 You can also look for regenerated or reclaimed cashmere, which is “made from postmanufacturing waste, such as cuttings gathered from the factory floor. Regerneated cashmere is 92 percent less damaging to the environment than virgin cashmere.”22

Close-up of a white cashmere billy goat.
Image by Alexa from Pixabay.

Angora

Fur from an Angora rabbit is silky and super soft. It is warmer and lighter than wool and it felts easily. Angora fibers are often blended with wool to give it elasticity. Most breeds of Angora rabbits molt naturally about every four months, and producers “pluck” the molted fur from the animal. Some producers choose to shear the fur instead, which saves time, but results in lower-quality angora.

However, this is another type of fur you might want to avoid because it is an animal that producers sometimes abuse. In 2013, a PETA investigation showed human workers plucking live rabbits raw, meaning their hair was ripped from their skin (to obtain the longest fibers) while the rabbits screamed in pain. They are put back into cramped wire cages until their hair grows back. After three years the rabbits are killed.24 Unfortunately, China is the source of 90 percent of the world’s angora and that country has few laws regarding animal cruelty.

Silk

Silk is a gorgeous fabric. It is a natural fiber that is shiny and durable. It has a long trading history across the world. “Silk is the epitome of luxury due to its high cost to produce, soft feel, and elegant appearance…Different weaving processes result in different types of fabric, including crepe (a rough crinkled texture), organza (a thin, sheer fabric), and chiffon (a lightweight, plain-weave fabric with a slight stretch).”25

But it takes about 2,500 silkworms to spin a pound of raw silk. Elizabeth L. Cline explained how people harvest silk:

“Silk is produced by the saliva of silkworms that feed on the leaves of mulberry trees. A single silkworm can spin almost three thousand feet of usable silk thread while making one single cocoon. To extract the silk, a silkworm’s cocoon is boiled and the filaments unraveled.” This process creates very little waste but kills the silkworms. “However, fertilizers and insecticides are often used to grow the mulberry trees, and more energy is used to make silk than for most other textiles.” Some silk is dyed using heavy metals that can be toxic.26

There are organic silks and safe-chemical certifications available, so look for those because they have a lower impact on the environment. Other options include peace silk, which is made without killing the silkworms. A company called Bolt Threads manufactures a lab-grown silk alternative made out of yeast and sugar.27

Close-up of silkworm cocoons, with one opened at front.
Image by LoggaWiggler from Pixabay.

Leather

Humans have been wearing animal skins and leather for thousands of years. Today, companies mass-produce leather with a lot of harsh and hazardous chemicals. “Leather is a $100-billion-a-year business before it is turned into shoes, luggage, or coats,” wrote Dana Thomas, author of Fashionpolis. Consumer demand for leather rises by about 5 percent per year.28

The leather tanning industry produces a lot of solid waste and wastewater and has many polluted lands and rivers. “Leather has been linked to the deforestation of the Amazon and a variety of harmful chemicals are used during the tanning and production processes.”29

Governments regulate the leather industry in most places now, but there are exceptions. For example, some Bangladeshi tanneries don’t provide leather workers protective gear even though many people stand directly in vats of chemicals. The tanneries also dump untreated toxic wastewater into local rivers. “The leather-tanning district of Hazaribagh, Bangladesh, has been named one of the most toxic places in the world, although efforts are underway to clean it up.”30 Sohpie Benson wrote, “The Buriganga River, which runs through Dhaka, Bangladesh, is thick with effluent, hides and litter, and has been declared biologically dead due to the incessant flow of tannery waste.”31

The leather industry is also not known for being green or ethical. The leather industry discharges as many emissions as 30 million cars driven for a whole year.32 Cow leather is the most common type, and cows take a huge environmental toll. “The planet’s cattle herds and the fertilizer-and pesticide-intensive way they’re raised and fed are major drivers of deforestation, land degradation, climate change, and water pollution. Cows are also a major emitter of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.”33

Buy leather for items you intend to keep long-term. If you take care of it, it will last many years. The Leather Working Group certifies and audits leather tanneries on their environmental standards (see Additional Resources below). Responsible companies are transparent about where they source their leather, how they tan the leather, and the environmental and ethical conditions.34 You can also look for upcycled leather at Recyc Leather.35

“Although leather is often positioned as a natural alternative to plastic, leather footwear is often coated in it to make it more durable.” -Sophie Benson, Sustainable Wardrobe36

A mother and baby cow, gray colored, in a field with other cows. They have yellow tags on their ears.
Image by Protocultura from Pixabay.

Furs

Humans historically used the furs of animals they killed to stay warm. But today, most people wear furs for fashion only. Animal farms raise and keep animals in cages explicitly to kill them for their fur. Most of the time, the animals live in horrible conditions. Almost always, the farms waste the rest of the animal after slaughter.

Don’t buy fur.

If you must have a fur item for your closet, please consider a faux fur option. They look just as nice and are just as warm and comfortable as real fur. However, as always, you must be wary of the faux products you buy, as reporters have exposed major retailers selling real fur mislabeled as faux.37 Remember, a good company will be transparent about its production line.

“Killing animals is the most destructive thing you can do in the fashion industry. The tanneries, the chemicals, the deforestation, the use of landmass and grain and water, the cruelty – it’s a nonstarter. The minute you’re not killing an animal to make a shoe or a bag you are ahead of the game.” -Stella McCartney, quoted in Fashinopolis38

Two grey mink on a fur farm stare through the wire mesh of a filthy cage.
Two grey mink on a fur farm stare through the wire mesh of a filthy cage. Korsnas, Finland, 2023. Photo courtesy of Oikeutta elaimille / We Animals Media.

Down

Down is a layer of fine feathers on geese and ducks, which helps keep them warm in colder temperatures and water. Companies commonly use it to insulate jackets, coats, and sleeping bags. But the practices the industry uses to collect it are questionable. “The vast majority of the 270,000 metric tons of commercial down produced each year is a byproduct of goose and duck meat industries in Asia and Europe, where the birds might be live-plucked or force-fed for foie gras before heading to the slaughterhouse. Animal welfare advocates consider these cruel practices that they want to see eliminated from down’s complex supply chain.”39

Elizabeth L. Cline recommends shopping with brands certified by Textile Exchange’s Responsible Down Standard (see Additional Resources below), which verifies high animal welfare standards.40

A mother goose with her goslings, green grass background.
Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash.

Read Labels, Buy Second-Hand

Always read labels to see what you’re buying. If something isn’t familiar, use your smartphone while in the store and do a quick internet search on the materials. Sometimes just looking up the name of a product or materials is all you need. Before I wrote this article, I almost bought a pair of shoes made with shearling. I thought that shearling was just sheared wool. I decided to look up what shearling meant, and thank goodness I did! Once I understood that those shoes contributed to the death of an animal, they were no longer attractive to me and I didn’t buy them.

“Any animal-based fiber comes with tremendous ethical responsibility.” -Elizabeth L. Cline, The Conscious Closet41

Stacks of sheepskins.
This image shows piles of salted sheep and cattle skins, at a slaughterhouse on the outskirts of Melbourne, Victoria. Photo courtesy of Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals Media.

You can look for sustainable or organic materials certified by organizations such as the ones listed under Additional Resources below. There’s a lot to know, which is why sometimes it’s easier to buy second-hand. Buying used ensures that you’re not directly supporting a certain type of textile production and it reduces overall demand. Giving an article of clothing a second chance also keeps it from going into a landfill or cluttering the landscapes of developing countries. In my next article, I’ll review types of synthetic fabrics. Thank you for reading, please share and subscribe!

Additional Resources:

Afirm Group: Brands participating in Afirm “subscribe to a common product restricted substance list (RSL) and have some of their products tested for hazardous chemicals.”42

Fibershed.org is a nonprofit fostering the resurgence of small-scale farmers and regenerative farming practices around the world.

Global Textile Standard (GOTS) “is the worldwide leading textile processing standard for organic fibres, including ecological and social criteria, backed up by independent certification of the entire textile supply chain. GOTS-certified final products may include fibre products, yarns, fabrics, clothes, home textiles, mattresses, personal hygiene products, as well as food contact textiles and more.”

Organic Content Standard (OCS) is “a voluntary global standard that sets the criteria for third-party certification of organic materials and chain of custody.”

bluesign is a third-party label with specific safety and environmental requirements regarding chemicals.

Cradle to Cradle Certified “Product Standard provides the framework to assess the safety, circularity and responsibility of materials and products across five categories of sustainability performance.”

Oeko-Tex certifies products and all their components as free of harmful toxins.

The Responsible Wool Standard, run by Textile Exchange, ensures that animal welfare and sustainable land management standards have been met.43

The Leather Working Group (LWG) is a “not-for-profit that drives best practices and positive social and environmental change for responsible leather production.”

The Responsible Down Standard (RDS) “incentivizes the down and feather industry to treat ducks and geese humanely and…gives companies and consumers a way to know what’s in the products they buy.”

ZDHC: Brands subscribe to a manufacturing restricted substance list (MRSL) to reduce hazardous chemicals in fashion. “The Roadmap to Zero Programme, by ZDHC, leads the fashion industry to eliminate harmful chemicals from its global supply chain by building the foundation for more sustainable manufacturing to protect workers, consumers and our planet’s ecosystems.”

Footnotes:

Posted on

Tokitae Died at the Miami Seaquarium

Lolita/Tokitae the orca with her head just above the pool's surface at the Miami Seaquarium.
Photo by Leonardo Dasilva on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).

Tokitae has died.

This is the second captive orca to die in captivity in the US this year, as we lost Kiska at Marineland Ontario/Niagara Falls in March.

She was so close to being back in the ocean, where she belonged. Scientists even believe her mother is still living in the Pacific Northwest and that they could’ve possibly been reunited someday.

Tokitae, formerly known as Lolita, lived in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium for more than 50 years. The marine amusement park recently signed an agreement to release her back to the Pacific Northwest, and you can read the updates here. This effort took many years and involved scientists, marine biologists, activists, documentarians, writers, etc. The owner of the Indianapolis Colts offered to pay for her transport from Miami to the west coast. The Lummi Nation was going to monitor and care for Tokitae in her new home. The wheels were set in motion and the plans were established.

But it was too late, the Miami Seaquarium should’ve let her go years ago.

Lolita/Tokitae the orca jumping out of the pool straight up at the Miami Seaquarium, trainers and audience in background.
Photo by Rick Webb on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

I cried pretty hard when I saw the press release from the Whale Sanctuary Project. I really believed Tokitae was going home.

The Friends of Toki and the Whale Sanctuary Project were the two organizations actively working to get her back to the ocean. But there were other individuals and organizations that helped raise awareness and money for over a decade. Thank you to everyone who ever advocated for Tokitae, whether you wrote about her, filmed her, protested for her release, raised money, or raised awareness about her. So many of us loved her and cared about her. She will always be in our hearts.

Posted on

The Real Global Price of What You Wear, Part 3

Updated September 12, 2023.

Cotton flowers in field with blue sky background.
Photo by Trisha Downing on Unsplash.

Are synthetic or natural fabrics better for the environment? Natural fabrics fare better, but the overproduction of both types of fabrics is the problem. The way we carelessly disregard and dispose of our clothing is a  problem too, as was emphasized in Part 2 of this article series. Elizabeth L. Cline, an expert on fast fashion and sustainability in the apparel industry, says that asking which fabric is greenest is actually the wrong question. “We need to improve the sustainability of all the materials we wear.”1

Though we all need to reduce everything we consume, understanding the differences between synthetics and natural fabrics will benefit us as consumers. If we know where something came from, how it was sourced, and how it was created and turned into fashion, we can make better choices and value our clothing more.

Natural fabrics refer to those made from natural fibers sourced from plants or animals. Let’s start by taking a look at the natural fabrics that come from plant-based sources.

“We need to improve the sustainability of all the materials we wear.” -Elizabeth L. Cline

Clothing rack with many attractive colors, small chalkboard sign indicates they are on sale.
Photo by Megan Lee on Unsplash.

Cotton

Cotton is grown all over the world, and its production provides income for more than 250 million people. There are about 35 million hectares of cotton under cultivation in the world. But it requires a lot of water, pesticides, and fertilizers.

Water

Cotton production uses 3 percent of the entire world’s agricultural water supply.2 Some experts argue that cotton is the largest water user of all agricultural production combined.11

“As much as 2,168 gallons of water is required to grow the cotton in a single T-shirt…While water is plentiful in some cotton-growing areas, almost 60 percent of all cotton is grown in regions affected by water scarcity…And while cotton could be a major source of poverty alleviation in rural and poor areas, in many places it is exploitive instead.”12

In some areas, surface and ground waters are diverted to irrigate cotton fields. This leads to freshwater depletion for entire regions, including Pakistan’s Indus River Delta and Central Asia’s Aral Sea. About 97% of the water from the Indus River goes to crop production, including cotton.13 Worse, the Indus River, upon which millions of people rely, is badly polluted with chemicals and plastic.

The depletion of the Aral Sea is one major loss. A Soviet Union project that began in the 1960s diverted the feeding rivers away from the Aral Sea in an attempt to grow cotton and other crops in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. This has almost drained the Aral Sea, once the fourth-largest lake in the world. That has caused the soil to become drier and saltier, and the dry soil creates dust storms. That dust is full of leftover pesticides and fertilizers, and people in those areas have significant reproductive issues, including miscarriages and malformations at birth. In addition, “Livelihoods, wildlife habitats, and fish populations have been decimated.”18

Aerial view: The Aral Sea in 1989 (left) vs. 2014 (right).
The Aral Sea in 1989 (left) vs. 2014 (right). Image by NASA and collage by Producercunningham on Wikimedia.

Chemicals

“Conventionally grown cotton requires the heavy use of synthetic fertilizers.”19

Cotton production requires about 220,000 tons of pesticides and 8.8 million tons of fertilizer yearly. “One-fifth of insecticides – and more than 10 percent of all pesticides – are devoted to the protection of conventional cotton.”20 Those pesticides are highly toxic to human workers and animals, and they pollute the environment. Industrial and agricultural chemical poisoning are among the top five leading causes of death worldwide.21 The World Health Organization classified 8 out of 10 of the US’s cotton pesticides as ‘hazardous.’22

Fertilizers that end up in waterways create nutrient pollution, meaning those excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous) allow toxic algal blooms. Those deplete entire zones of oxygen, creating dead zones, which harm aquatic species and disrupt entire ecosystems. Fertilizers also contribute to greenhouse gases.23

Approximately 16% of all pesticides are used on cotton.24 Additionally, genetically modified crops, including cotton, have made crops toxic to common pests. This has reduced the use of pesticides but has not eliminated the need for them. “A large number of farmers have adopted genetically modified cotton seeds that include a gene protecting it from the herbicide glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup). That way, the fields can be sprayed with the herbicide when the plant is young, easily eliminating competition from weeds.”25 However, this has made farmers dependent on those specific seeds, which are made by the same company that makes the pesticides and herbicides.

Forced Labor

Uzbekistan, once one of the largest producers of cotton, used forced labor for cotton production until 2021.26 Today, China and India are the largest producers of cotton. Parts of China use forced labor and parts of India use child labor for cotton production. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the following countries also use child labor, forced labor, or both:27

                • Argentina
                • Azerbaijan
                • Benin
                • Brazil
                • Burkina Faso
                • Egypt
                • Kazakhstan
                • Kyrgyz Republic
                • Mali
                • Pakistan
                • Tajikistan
                • Turkey
                • Turkmenistan
                • Zambia

Soil Degradation

Cotton production severely degrades soil quality,28 because of the overuse of nitrogen-based mineral fertilizers. Cotton also causes soil erosion because of the large amounts of water it requires to grow.

Organic Cotton & Other Options

We can produce cotton organically, that is without pesticides and fertilizers, and therefore more sustainably. There are two leading organic certifications: Global Organic Textile Exchange (GOTS) and Organic Cotton Standard (OCS). Organic cotton only comprises around 0.33% of all cotton grown. Those chemicals never end up in runoff or the environment. However, organic cotton still requires large amounts of water. And, unfortunately, organic often means more expensive.

Initiatives such as “Better Cotton and Fairtrade Cotton focus on better land use, water practices, and labor standards but don’t have any proven environmental benefits.”29 Better Cotton is difficult to enforce and farmers who adopt it are not subsidized. Also, it allows for genetically modified organisms (GMO) seeds.30 So this is not the best initiative out there.

Cotton Made in Africa has more than 30 brand members, which supports small growers and environmentally friendly growing practices in sub-Saharan Africa.31

Recycled or reclaimed cotton sounds promising as well, but it does have drawbacks. According to cottonworks.com, “the majority of recycled cotton is claimed through mechanical recycling. First, fabrics and materials are sorted by color. After sorting, the fabrics are run through a machine that shreds the fabric into yarn and further into raw fiber. This process is harsh and puts a great deal of strain on the fiber. It is not uncommon for fibers to break and entangle during shredding. The raw fiber is then spun back into yarns for reuse in other products. The quality of recycled fiber will never have quality values equal to the original fiber. Specifically, fiber length and length uniformity will be impacted, which will limit the end-use application.”32 

“Current cotton production methods are environmentally unsustainable.” -World Wildlife Fund33

Field of cotton with a green cotton harvester harvesting the crop, blue sky background.
Photo by Karl Wiggers on Unsplash.

Denim

Denim is mainly made from cotton. It takes between 2,000 and 2,900 gallons of water to produce a single pair of jeans, mainly because of dying and finishing treatments. “In the 1970s and 1980s, hip fashion people decided that denim shouldn’t look like denim anymore, and they came up with stone washing and acid washing.” These processes use pumice (stones) and sometimes bleach or other acidic chemicals. The water used for dying and finishing is not reused or recycled, which means it ends up in the environment.34

“To achieve a faux-worn effect, jeans are sandblasted, hand-sanded, or sprayed with chemicals by individuals who inhale the fumes each day.”38

We must also consider the cost of transport for something such as a pair of jeans. There is “a big cost in getting the cotton from (for example) Texas, where it’s grown, to Indonesia to be spun into fibers, to Bangladesh to be made into denim, and sent back to the U.S. to be sold.”39

Some programs aim to reduce water in production, such as Levi’s Water<Less campaign. Their process reduces up to 96% of the water normally used in denim finishing, which is the final stage in making a pair of jeans. Levi’s claims to have saved more than 3 billion liters of water and recycled more than 1.5 billion liters of water.40 Always look at these programs critically, but if they are legit, try buying sustainable clothing.

Last, there is a recycling program for denim. The Blue Jeans Go Green program collects cotton-based denim and recycles it back to its original fiber state and transforms it into something new. The program claims to have kept more than 4.5 million pieces of old denim out of landfills.41 Denim is also a sustainable type of home and building insulation.

Man installing recycled denim insulation in a wall.
Photo by Rebecca Landis on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Bast-Plant Fibers

Bast-plant fibers include fabrics like linen, jute, hemp, and ramie. Linen is a textured fiber made from the flax plant. It is naturally hypoallergenic and is very breathable, making it a great textile for warm-weather clothes. Jute is a coarse natural plant fiber from the jute plant that is used to weave fabrics like burlap cloth. It is a popular textile to make rugs and burlap sacks. Hemp is durable, versatile, and moisture-resistant. Ramie creates strong fabrics that look similar to linen. 

These fibers are biodegradable, renewable, and sustainable. Bast fibers are collected from the outer third of the stem of a plant between the woody core and the thin outer layer. These make strong, durable, and breathable cloth.

These plants support regenerative farming, which improves the environment. “Plants used in bast fibre production are often great cover crops working in rotation with other crops, keeping the soil covered to minimize erosion and incorporating organic matter to improve soil fertility. A greater diversity of crops within a farming system not only improves soil quality, but minimizes plant diseases, further reducing the need for chemical applications.”42 They use less water, fertilizers, pesticides, and energy.

You can also buy these fabrics recycled or organic certified (see Additional Resources below). Organic means that chemical pesticides and fertilizers weren’t used in the production of the plant or fabric.43

Close-up of a Linen beige button down shirt.
Photo by Taisiia Shestopal on Unsplash.

Bamboo

While bamboo is a plant, marketers often tout it as “eco-friendly,” but manufacturers make bamboo fabric by chemically pulverizing plants and trees. This makes it unnatural. Since this fabric is full of harsh chemicals, I have chosen to include it in the synthetics part of this series (Part 5).

Read the Labels

Now that you know more about natural fabrics, you may find that reading labels will at least give you the basic information you’re looking for. Is the item you want to purchase made with 100% organic cotton, or a cotton blend? If it’s the latter, what does the blend consist of? Also, where was the item made? Was it made in a country with decent labor laws?

If there’s a fabric you’re not familiar with listed on the tag, look it up. Most people carry a smartphone with them, which offers the opportunity to look it up before making a purchase.

Overproduction

While plant-based fabrics come from the Earth, they are not always the best option because of the pesticides, fertilizers, and chemicals that most producers use to grow them. But they are still better than plastic-based synthetic fabrics derived from fossil fuels.

Remember, the overproduction of all fabrics is the problem. Buy fewer but higher-quality articles when you can. Take good care of the clothing you do have, mend your clothing if you are able, and buy second-hand when you need to replace something.

In my next article, I’ll review types of animal-based fabrics. Thank you for reading. Please share and subscribe!

 

Additional Resources:

Website, Better Cotton. Their mission is “to help cotton communities survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment.”

Website, Global Textile Standard (GOTS). “GOTS is the worldwide leading textile processing standard for organic fibres, including ecological and social criteria, backed up by independent certification of the entire textile supply chain. GOTS-certified final products may include fibre products, yarns, fabrics, clothes, home textiles, mattresses, personal hygiene products, as well as food contact textiles and more.” According to Elizabeth L. Cline, “GOTS is the most rigorous organic standard, as it covers not just the cultivation of the raw materials but the processing of the textiles as well.”44

Website, Organic Content Standard (OCS). They are “a voluntary global standard that sets the criteria for third-party certification of organic materials and chain of custody.”

Website, Oeko-Tex, “certifies that every component of the product, from the fabric to the thread and accessories, has been rigorously tested against a list of up to 350 toxic chemicals.”

Footnotes:

Posted on

Discussing Plastics, Paper Towels, and the Journey to Living Thoughtfully with Eve O. Schaub, author of Year of No Garbage

Underwater image of fish swimming near floating plastic trash.
Photo by Naja Bertolt Jensen on Unsplash.

After reading the new book, Year of No Garbage: Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems, and One Woman’s Trashy Journey to Zero Waste, I had the pleasure of interviewing author Eve O. Schaub. She was fun to speak with and very passionate about the subject matter. I loved the way our conversation flowed between funny and serious.

Seriously, she’s great to talk to. She’s very relatable, enthusiastic, and extremely knowledgeable. She explains complex matters in an honest and open way. We’ve all experienced conundrums with garbage and recycling at times, some of which have no resolution. She makes the reader understand that we aren’t alone in this. Plus, the book is quite an entertaining story!

The Beginning

Schaub has written three books within this paradigm: Year of No Sugar, Year of No Clutter, and Year of No Garbage. I wanted to know how it all started and how it transpired from No Sugar to No Clutter to No Garbage. She had seen an online talk by a pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Robert H. Lustig, who associates sugar with many of the most common western diseases. “I was captivated by this. I mean, I’m not in the habit of sitting around and watching 90-minute medical lectures,” she laughed. But she found that his findings made so much sense. “It was like I had been given a new pair of glasses. I saw the world in a completely different way.” Schaub decided to make this a writing project. “What could be more important than the health of our families and the food that we put on our table?”

What would it take to eliminate sugar? Schaub thought that it couldn’t be that hard, so she convinced her family to live for one year without consuming added sugar, with a few exceptions. She drew inspiration from authors, such as Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life) and Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), who created a set of rules for a specific period and then reported on it. As she would come to find out, it is actually very difficult to eliminate sugar because it’s in everything.

After finishing her first book, Schaub said Year of No Clutter felt like a very natural next project. She stated it was more of a personal project for her because the root of the clutter in her home was her. “As the self-confessed polar opposite of Marie Kondo, I spent a year confronting my inner hoarder and wrote a book.”21 This journey led to the idea of Year of No Garbage.

Large, full yellow dumpster with all kinds of trash and debris.
Image by Nathan Copley from Pixabay.

No Garbage

The idea of garbage and what happens to it had captivated Schaub since childhood. Trash is a given thing in our culture, and most people never give it a second thought. “Trash is like weeds. Right? Weeds are only plants that are in the wrong place…that’s the same with trash. There’s no such thing as trash, it’s just whatever we say it is. It’s in the wrong place, it’s inconvenient, we don’t know what to do with it,” she said.

What’s more impressive is Schaub did this during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. While many actually found it significantly harder to have less trash that year than any other, her family managed to do it by following a pre-established set of rules. She said it was a good distraction during a time when we were forced to slow down, and she felt it provided a good opportunity to reset and rethink.

“I kept trying to remind myself that the very fact that trying to live without garbage is super difficult—and at times virtually impossible—was the whole darned point: if it were easy there wouldn’t be much to write about, and everyone would probably already be doing it, and the earth would be a happier, less trashy, more equitable, less cancer-filled, less disaster-prone place. The End.”22

Trash symbol, outline of person in white paint throwing paper in a trash receptacle, black background.
Photo by Gary Chan on Unsplash.

Plastics

Plastics are the hardest type of garbage to deal with, and there’s so much of it. Schaub acknowledged that it’s nearly impossible to avoid buying food without plastic packaging. “You’d have to live in a cave and grow all your own food in the ground, and drink from a stream. I mean, that’s how hard it is…That’s how ingrained it is.” But if we know this, we can work to turn off the plastic tap and think about ways to use less.

Most people don’t realize that plastic is made from oil and chemicals. Big Oil is openly planning to triple its plastic production by 2050. “And they’re proud of it!” Schaub exclaimed. “Do we need three times the amount of plastic in our lives than we already have now?! No, I don’t think anybody thinks that. But they are looking for new markets. They’re trying to increase profits, especially in the wake of people buying [and] turning to electric cars, for example. They’re going to be selling less oil in other departments because of environmental initiatives.” Capitalism drives everything in our culture, and Big Oil is one of the most aggressive industries. Those are the forces we are up against, she said.

“The plastic waste crisis is horrible, but it’s not your fault. It is the fault of forces that are beyond each individual person’s control. This is corporations. This is Big Oil.”

She mentioned that personal responsibility is not the sole solution, but that awareness is the key. Films such as The Story of Plastic, which highlights the global problem of the people whose lives are negatively affected by our waste; videos of a sea turtle with a straw in its nose; and images of dead albatross with stomachs full of plastics are disturbing. But they are powerful because they raise awareness.

Dead Laysan Albatross with plastic at Harbor Sand Island, Midway Atoll.
Dead Laysan Albatross with plastic in its stomach at Harbor Sand Island, Midway Atoll. March 31, 2015. Photo by Forest and Kim Starr on Wikimedia, Creative Commons license (CC BY 3.0 US).

Recycling

Single-stream recycling is a lie, especially when it comes to plastic, the author acknowledged. Knowing that the plastic recycling rate is only 5% is crushing, because people try so hard to do it properly and follow the rules. Yet, most plastic is landfilled. “Every other material has a place to go and has a way to break down. Or be made into something new.” Schaub said that after five decades of recycling, “five percent is the best we can do?!? That’s shocking.”

Single-stream (curbside) recycling often collects plastics with RIC numbers 1-7. But most of those (#3-7) are not recycled and end up in developing countries. “If I know that my plastic is being shipped to Malaysia and Myanmar and Thailand, I’m going to be hesitant to put it in recycling at all because I know that that’s the system in place,” she explained. “These are our plastics that are being shipped across the sea to litter the landscapes of developing nations that do not have the infrastructure to deal with it. You literally have children playing in our waste plastic. And the list of countries is long…these people are living in our trash plastic…this is an environmental justice issue. This is racism.” We have the impression that we are doing a wonderful thing when we put plastic in the recycling bin instead of the landfill, but that is unfortunately sometimes false.

“In the name of recycling, countries around the world are suffering.”

Smiling child garbage recycler in Saigon, holding a bag with cans from companies like Coca-Cola.
Child garbage recycler in Saigon, holding a bag with cans from companies like Coca-Cola. Photo by etoile on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC-BY 2.0).

The Role of Corporations and Industries

I asked Schaub: “How do we get these corporations to do the right thing? Because at every turn, like you talk about in your book, they’re looking for a new stream of revenue. How do we get them to stop?” Schaub responded, “Well, they won’t stop, because financially, it doesn’t make sense for them to stop. So we can’t really turn to the corporations too much. I mean, we can try.” But they are always going to put profits first. For example, Coca-Cola has been making environmental promises for decades. But they don’t actually fulfill those promises, “because there’s no sheriff in town,” she said. There are no entities that make sure companies fulfill their promises when it comes to plastic and other environmental endeavors.

“We need more transparency…we need to have a sheriff.”

Schaub observed that industries often put the responsibility on the consumer, in that we shouldn’t buy those things, or that we don’t recycle properly. But it is the industry that should be making better products. “There are a lot of parallels between plastic and sugar, actually. It all comes down to something that’s cheap and it’s easy and it’s convenient and that’s why it’s everywhere, in the case of both of those things…The industry does not have an incentive to do better.” There is an illusion of choice for the consumer as well. There may be 30 types of bread at the supermarket but only one of them will not have added sugar in it. The same is true with plastic. “Try buying cheese without buying plastic. It’s incredibly hard!” Schaub is right – I’ve never been able to buy plastic-free cheese, anywhere.

“Personal responsibility is very important, [and] personal awareness. But if I go buy a bamboo toothbrush and a shampoo bar, that’s good, but it’s not going to fix the overall systemic cultural problem that we’re encountering.”

Legislation May Be the Most Important Focus

Schaub says turning to legislation is perhaps more important than asking corporations to change. She said that proposed bills such as The Break Free from Pollution Act and the United Nations Plastic Pollution Treaty, as well as state and local legislation, show us progress. There are plastic bag and plastic straw bans where she lives, and there is even a charge for paper grocery bags in Vermont. “This is the low-hanging fruit. You have to start somewhere,” she said. (I didn’t tell her that my state, Tennessee, has a law banning bans on plastic and polystyrene containers.) The hope is that more states and municipalities will do the sensible thing. “The more we ask, the more available it will become.” Asking puts in your vote as a consumer!

Diet Coke bottle floating in water.
Diet Coke plastic bottle floating in a body of water. Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay.

Toxic Chemicals

Plastic packaging is often full of toxins that can leach into many things, including food and beverages. “Avoid plastic packaging especially when it comes to food whenever you can. And definitely do not heat your food in plastic,” Schaub said. Don’t put plastic in the dishwasher because the heat releases the toxic chemicals in plastic, and most of the time we don’t know what’s in those plastics.

“It’s amazing to me that when you go to the supermarket, and you buy a food product, they have to tell you what’s in that food…But nobody has any obligation to tell you what’s in the packaging. That’s another instance of where we assume that ‘well, this has to be safe,'” she said. But they may not be! There are so many chemicals and the formulas are often proprietary and secret. “Plastic and food need to stay way the heck away from each other, as much as possible.”

“It’s one thing when you’re talking about ‘the ice caps are melting and the polar bears are starving,’ and nobody likes that – that’s bad! But when you start putting toxic chemicals into my body, suddenly I’m paying even more attention…or, when you’re talking about putting those same chemicals into the bodies of my children…I think that’s probably what it’s going to take, is for people to start understanding that connection between plastics and our health, and all the negative effects that can be correlated. The same thing with sugar. When you start connecting the dots, it’s very alarming. And of course, sugar and plastic are so often used in conjunction, from candy bars to all the soda, it’s like they are best friends!”

Box with variety of plastic-wrapped candy bars.
Most candy bars are wrapped in plastic. Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash.

Avoiding Garbage Changes The Way We Purchase

I asked Schaub what items she’d stopped buying because of Year of No Garbage. She laughed, “I had quite a love affair with paper towels. I was the person who went to the supermarket every week and bought the largest bale, like a hay bale, of paper towels.” She explained that sometimes the large bales have individually plastic-wrapped rolls in addition to the outer plastic wrap. “Horrible! But I realized that there were so many times that I could avoid using paper towels very simply, by just having dish towels on hand…or I’ve got rags that I’ve made from cutting up really old towels or sheets. That’s what I use for cleaning now…and I get a great sense of satisfaction out of that…I have incorporated [it] into my life, it’s part of my routine now. So now I just do it without even thinking about it. It does take some effort to set up a new routine. And there is discomfort in that.”

But it was manageable. And she still uses paper towels but significantly less. “I went from going through a hay bale of paper towels every week to now, I buy one roll at a time, and I’ll have it for weeks.” If you don’t want to use a certain item, like paper towels or sugar, the best thing to do is to avoid bringing them into your home. That will automatically discourage use.

Avoiding Plastics

Schaub and I agree that it’s best to avoid plastics whenever possible. And when you do have to buy something with plastic, it’s almost better to put them into the landfill than to try to recycle them. “I feel like that’s a much more honest approach. If I have something that’s going to go to the landfill, I’m just going to put it right in there and accept that’s the only thing that can happen to this piece of plastic…but knowing that will now cause me to be ever more vigilant to try and avoid buying that product,” she said.

For me, that has been items such as bottled shampoo, plastic straws, and plastic shower curtains. Once I became aware of the problems with those things, I stopped bringing them into my home. We switched to shampoo bars and have never reverted back to liquid shampoo. We don’t need a straw for most drinks; when we do, we have metal straws. And though I’ve had my trials and tribulations with fabric shower curtains, I have not had a plastic one in the house for 10 years. As for paper towels, I also use very few and the ones I purchase are plastic-free.

Year of No Garbage book cover

Normalizing Environmental Actions

I was telling Schaub that I routinely keep two clean glass containers in my car with my cloth shopping bags. This way, if I’m at a restaurant and want to take my leftovers home I can do so without having my food touch toxic Styrofoam (polystyrene). But while bringing your own bags to the supermarket is common now, bringing my glass containers to a restaurant is still kind of weird to people. She affirmed, “I think this is all about normalizing it, right? If somebody is standing next to you when you go and use that container at the butcher or the restaurant, they see you doing that and they go ‘Huh! That’s interesting.’ And it starts the process of becoming more normal. And that’s a wonderful thing we can do. We’re not just helping ourselves, we’re progressing this whole idea forward.”

“Awareness is the beginning of all meaningful change.”

Glass container with bamboo lid, white background.
Glass container with bamboo lid from IKEA.

Living Intentionally

Schaub said that all three projects permanently changed how her family lives and consumes in the world. This is because they can’t ‘unknow’ the information they’ve learned. She also liked the symmetry of the three projects because she felt like her family came full circle. “We started with the things that we put into our bodies, and then I focused on the things we bring into our homes, and then lastly I focused on the things that we’re putting into the environment, which, guess what – spoiler alert – because they’re in the environment, they’re now coming around and going back into our bodies as well. And so now we’re finding microplastics in foods because it’s in the dirt! It’s in the produce! It’s in the tap water and the bottled water! These microplastics don’t go away…[plastic] never breaks down.” It turns into microscopic plastic pieces. “But it’s still there, and that’s the stuff that’s going into our bodies as well as into the environment,” she maintained.

Our culture is so busy but when we slow down, we can be more thoughtful and more intentional, including with our resources. She wrote, “As it turns out—and I’m as surprised as anyone about this—living No Sugar, No Clutter and No Garbage all led to the same place: living thoughtfully…Being thoughtful about your space, your resources, your food, where the objects of our life come from and where they all go; devoting the time to put those ideals into practice: getting objects to people who will love and use them, recycling and reusing, cooking as much as possible from basic ingredients.”23

Cardboard sign with black painted letters with sky in background: "All You Need Is Less."
Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash.

Read Year of No Garbage

Schaub’s goal is to spread information and provide people with more information so that they can incorporate it into their lives in a way that makes sense for them. She said that some people read Year of No Garbage and find it an entertaining story. For other readers, it might change everything about the way they shop and discard and recycle. She doesn’t want people to feel shame because guilt isn’t going to make anything better. These are urgent issues and we need to come together. Her book incorporates these ideas, so be sure to check it out!

If you are interested in purchasing Year of No Garbage or any of Schaub’s other works, you can find links on her website.

Read my book review, and please share and subscribe!

 

Additional Resources:

Book, Year of No Garbage: Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems, and One Woman’s Trashy Journey to Zero Waste, by Eve O. Schaub, Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2023

Video, “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” Education, Dr. Robert H. Lustig, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, May 26, 2009.

Documentary, “Fed Up,” 2014.

Video, “Plastic Straw Removed From A Sea Turtle’s Nostril (Short Version),” The Leatherback Trust, August 13, 2015.

Website, About The Story of Plastic film.

Footnotes:

Posted on

Book Review: Year of No Garbage by Eve O. Schaub

Year of No Garbage book cover

“Trash is America’s number one export.”

I recently had the pleasure of reading Year of No Garbage by Eve O. Schaub. The book is a great source of well-researched information regarding the huge problems surrounding our waste crisis. I found myself laughing out loud at the many humorous and relatable stories, which help make very real topics like plastic pollution feel more approachable. Especially when those topics can be so complex and depressing!

Overflowing 'Litter' bin with trash piled in front of it, a crowd of people in background.
Photo by Paul Schellekens on Unsplash.

“Our garbage is everywhere, all around us, in our very bodies, and we don’t even realize it. Microplastics have been found in humans’ blood, lungs, the placenta of unborn children, and, most recently, breast milk.”

Garbage is a Problem For Everyone

Garbage doesn’t go away, it just goes somewhere else.

Even the most extreme environmentalists and zero-wasters have found objects for which there is no way to upcycle, recycle, or reuse. Nobody knows what to do with them, so they must go in the garbage. Many environmentalists often don’t talk about these types of items, but Schaub puts those stories front and center.

For example, in Year of No Garbage, she included a hilarious story about a Styrofoam-filled beanbag that her cats had peed on. There was no saving or repurposing it so she had to trash it. Her husband thought her blog readers would ‘crucify’ her for having something like this that was dumpster-bound. But she thought this was the point entirely! “I mean, I have to talk about this, right? This is what the whole thing is about. I mean: look at this. Things like this should not exist.”

The stuff – meaning the plastics and Styrofoams and disposables – pervades every part of our lives. It is almost impossible to not come in contact with them constantly. In fact, Shaub tried just going a single day without touching plastic and found it nearly impossible. That is, she had to avoid the toilet, the soap dispenser, her cell phone, pen, computer, yoga mat, light switches, etc. “I couldn’t drive anywhere, because cars are 50 percent plastic. This was probably just as well, because I also couldn’t wear my glasses.” Even books and magazines often have a plastic coating on the covers. On her blog, she commented:

“I still hate plastic and everything it is doing to us, but this impossible day gave me a newfound understanding of what we are really up against. Who knew that in only a few short decades our society could have so thoroughly encased ourselves in mysterious plastic chemicals, to the point that doing without them immobilizes us? Recently I had happened upon an article in the New York Times, ‘Life Without Plastic Is Possible. It’s Just Very Hard.’ I beg to differ—and I speak from experience.”30

Black garbage bag sitting in front of a door next to a pair of slip-on shoes.
Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash.

Recycling 

One way the author attempted to reduce her family’s garbage was to recycle everything she could. But this wasn’t easy as just throwing it in a blue bin. One of the chapter titles, “I Become the Sherlock Holmes of Recycling . . . or at Least Watson,” referred to the vast amounts of research it took to recycle many items. “There are so many things about recycling that we just don’t know, that prevent us from doing it correctly and efficiently, and I was pretty much spending every waking moment trying to figure them all out.”

Plastic’s rate of recycling used to be just 9%, but has fallen even lower to between 5 and 6 percent. And that’s typically only plastics with a resin code of 1 or 2. The rest is often shipped off to other countries, where they often do not have the infrastructure to deal with these plastics. “No matter what your garbage service provider is telling you, numbers 3, 4, 6, and 7 are not getting recycled.”

Schaub noted that recycling programs are flawed and often don’t work. That includes everything from single-stream/curbside to extreme recycling programs like TerraCycle. “But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up. What I am giving up on is the myth of personal responsibility…it took me an entire year of looking and asking and researching to finally accept what so many have long suspected…Plastic recycling does not work. Extreme ‘recycling’ programs are not trustworthy.” She wrote that legislation (with enforcement) regarding plastics, chemicals, and waste will be what makes the most difference. That is how we can get corporations to make better products and packaging, as well as use less toxic ingredients.

“Before the Year of No Garbage, did I love that I could buy a package of lovely, sealed, organic ground beef at the supermarket that would keep good for much, much longer than other, mere mortal organic ground beef? Of course—it’s convenient and efficient. It reduces food waste and saves money. Longer shelf life probably even made my supermarket more likely to carry organic meat in the first place. But where Intergalactic Space Plastic reduces waste of food, it creates waste of something arguably even worse: permanent, forever garbage. At least wasted food, if composted, can degrade back into the environment.”

A seagull at a body of water with trash in its mouth.
A seagull with trash in its mouth. Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.

Garbage Reduction

There are so many things that most of us absent-mindedly throw away because we don’t know what else to do with them. This book teaches us to think about trash differently – whether we recycle, give items a second life, or avoid buying certain items in the first place.

Schaub’s family was able to greatly reduce their garbage, mostly by paying closer attention to what they bought. They made incremental changes, such as “eliminating paper towels, instituting a burn pile for small and unrecyclable paper, collecting wine corks and plastic caps to donate for school craft projects, composting all food scraps (not just some),” collecting plastic film for the bin at the supermarket, washing and recycling their aluminum foil, and avoiding the purchase of disposable items as much as possible.

Schaub recommended not using garbage bags. “Garbage bags are black holes, I realized. They encourage things to be thrown in them, things we’d rather not think about or deal with. Not having a bag in the bin means no messy organic material (which should really all be going into the compost anyway) but it also means, when I empty it, that’s one more time I think about my garbage and what it is composed of.” She uses pet food bags to bring trash to the dump.

“Instead of that ninety-six-gallon trash bin we used to fill each and every week, today we fill one-half of a kitchen-sized garbage bag every week, always composed pretty much entirely of single-use plastic food packaging that I couldn’t figure out how to avoid. We have gone from 96 gallons of trash per week to 9.”

Three waste bins in green, red, and yellow: Compost, Waste, and Recycling respectively.
Photo by Nareeta Martin on Unsplash.

Zero Waste Is Extremely Difficult

“There’s a lot of stuff out there masquerading as useful and sustainable, when it’s really just more stuff…As the Zero Wasters like to say, the most environmental purchase is the one you didn’t make.”

It is very difficult to go completely zero waste in our modern society. “Zero waste is a lovely idea,” Schaub wrote. But “the number of people who are both willing and able to genuinely go full bore zero waste under our existing system is so small as to be statistically insignificant. Which means, effectively, that even though it is technically possible, it is not realistic. And it’s not going to fix anything.” Fossil fuel companies are the biggest drivers of emissions and plastics production. They don’t have any plans to put themselves out of business.

But we have to keep trying.

“I’m not suggesting that just because personal responsibility will not solve the problems of garbage and plastic and climate change, we should all just throw in the towel. Forget it! Hand me that plastic straw! Turtles be damned! No. What I’m saying is that personal behavior changes are never going to be enough all on their own, because the forces at work are so enormous.”

Black trash can with trash items sitting on top of it and on the ground around it.
Photo by the blowup on Unsplash.

Intentionality

Schaub wrote that being intentional is key to making any great change, whether it is at home or through legislation. We can all do better if we know better. We can all become more intentional in our lives. This is one of the greatest lessons we can learn from minimalism even if we are not minimalists. She wrote:

“If the unexamined life isn’t worth living, it follows that living mindfully gives us purpose. I hope my kids will live life with a sense of curiosity about the world and our place in it. I hope that if something doesn’t seem right, they’ll know that blind acceptance is not their only option; that even if one person might not be able to solve the problems of the environment, global warming, racial and environmental injustice, we can start the conversation, change minds, reveal a wrong, by the simple act of slowing down and taking a closer look.”

Read the Year of No Garbage!

I highly recommend reading this book! It’s fun, interesting, and full of well-researched information and first-hand experiences. A Year of No Garbage resonated so much with me because I have run into many of the same roadblocks and situations with plastics and garbage. I have struggled with replacing my plastic shower curtain with non-plastic. It was difficult to find alternatives to take-out containers made from Styrofoam (polystyrene) because of their toxicity. I also stopped paying for garbage bags and now just reuse dog food bags or I upcycled my own from shipping envelopes.

Understanding some of the problems surrounding waste in our society is the key to being able to change it. Schaub wrote, “As I’d learned with our other two projects, even when you are supposedly ‘done,’ you are not done at all. In fact, in some ways, that is when the hardest work begins. After all, the whole point of the crazy year-long project is to change how we do things so dramatically that it changes us.”

I had the opportunity to interview Eve O. Schaub, and I look forward to sharing that with you in my next article! In the meantime, you can check out her blog. Thanks for reading, please share and subscribe!

 

Footnotes:

All quotes from this article are from Year of No Garbage: Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems, and One Woman’s Trashy Journey to Zero Waste, by Eve O. Schaub, Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2023, unless otherwise cited.

Posted on

Earth Day 2023

"Earth Day" banner over the Earth which is in the shape of a heart.
Image by Laxman Deep from Pixabay.

Happy Earth Day! This is a day of recognition and a day to celebrate our beautiful home and habitat.

But as I always say, Earth Day should be every day.

This year, 2023, feels heavier, though. There’s so much going on and so much division that climate change and environmental issues often feel like back-burner issues.

It’s hard to think about buying plastic-free items and aiming for zero-waste when the price of groceries is so high.

While the average price of groceries rose 11.4% in the last year, it is expected to rise another 8.6% this year. But for some items, staples such as bread, eggs, milk, butter, and flour – the inflation rates are even higher. “The average price of white bread was about 22 percent higher in January than it was two years ago, and flour is up almost 21 percent. Butter cost 31 percent more.”31 Milk went up about 15% between 2021 and 2022.33 “The average price for all types of eggs ballooned 60% in 2022” because of an outbreak of bird flu.34

But some of the other costs have been simply to increase the wealth of corporations, CEOs, and shareholders. They are seeing record profits and receiving record dividends and bonuses. All at our expense. According to Oxfam, a global organization that fights inequality to end poverty and injustice, 62 new billionaires were created during the pandemic. They have exacerbated problems like labor shortages and supply chain disruptions to justify inflation. But the majority of food companies still managed to see record profits.35

Maroon-colored bag of Lundberg Family Farms organic basmati rice on a shelf.
Photo by me, April 8, 2023.

In the last 5 years, costs have increased overall by about twenty percent. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statics Consumer Price Index inflation calculator indicates that $100.00 in February 2018 has the same buying power of just over $120.00 in February 2023.44 Inflation has increased an average of 20% over the last 5 years. Most of us have not seen an increase in wages or benefits.

It’s difficult to see the value in cleaning up trash in one community when you see environmental racism and injustice in another.

My family participated in a Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful trash clean-up event in April 2023. It felt really good to go out and do something good. But all around our own city and in countries across the globe, there are people living amongst massive amounts of trash, toxic waste sites, and pollution. Why aren’t we doing more to help?

I remind myself that many of us are trying. Unfortunately, the people with the most wealth are often the same people exploiting those that have the least. And climate change affects some of the poorest communities in the world even though they have the smallest carbon footprint.

We just have to keep getting out there and doing what we can. Keep trying, learning, and especially voting!

It’s easy to shift your focus away from climate change when you are worried about the safety of your child at school.

I really don’t like to write about political issues on my website (other than things related to the environment and climate change, but those really shouldn’t be political issues, anyway). But this is a real fear for many parents, myself included. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children in the U.S.

The March 2023 Nashville school shooting, tragic and sad, should never have happened. The same week as that shooting, my son’s school in Chattanooga was put on a “secure hold” because of an intruder. The school seemed to have handled it swiftly and correctly, but they didn’t notify the parents until after the whole incident was over. The intruder was unarmed, but I nevertheless cried out of fear. I remain fearful every day I bring him to school. This daily anxiety is taking its toll.

How am I supposed to worry about climate change right now, when I’m worried about my child surviving the day?

A pair of gloved hands holding a globe with a sprouted plant on top, black background.
Photo by Fateme Alaie on Unsplash.

The answer is that I have to at least try.

“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now.” -Proverb

We all have to try.

Together.

We can do better.

“I don’t think we want to just scrape by as a species, surviving with a degraded natural world, suffering ecosystem and societal collapse, and mass human suffering on a scale that dwarfs anything we’ve experienced as a species. I think we all want to see what we’re capable of, and make this world of ours the best it can be.” -Rob Stewart45

Graphic of colorful stick people holding hands across the arc of the top of Earth.
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.

We must keep learning.

“When you know better, you do better.” -Maya Angelou

We have to do the right things, even when our leaders don’t.

“Choose what is right, not what is easy.” -Yoda

We have to give what we can, whether that’s time, energy, or money.

“The surest path to contentment is generosity. Giving forces us to recognize all we possess and all we have to offer. It allows us to find fulfillment and purpose in helping others.” -Joshua Becker, becomingminimalist.com

We must teach our children to do better than we have.

“I’m still convinced it’s a good old world, really, but I do think we have screwed it up. It’s highly obvious with the ocean filling with plastic; it didn’t get there by itself. Thinking that climate change is a hoax is another screw-up, one that I hope we can still fix for our children and our children’s children.” -Paul McCartney46

We need to value the people and the environment around us. Let’s help each other.

“Fighting for something other than your own wealth, working for someone else’s happiness, saving species, pulling people out of poverty, conserving instead of wasting – this is what really matters.” -Rob Stewart47

Photo of a watercolor painting of the Earth with a purple background.
Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash.

I leave you with a heavy heart this Earth Day. But I think the best thing we can do to celebrate today is to get outdoors and be in nature. Spend time taking in the elements and the beauty of nature. Hug a tree. Hug the person next to you. Spread kindness and love.

“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” -Albert Einstein

Thanks for reading, please share and subscribe.

Footnotes: