In 1941, the textiles industry made major movements. The DuPont corporation (located 10 minutes from my hometown!) invented a new material out of oil. This material is polyester. Polyester is very durable, resistant to most chemical, does not shrink, won’t lose its shape, is hydrophobic, and is also wrinkle resistant. It also blends well with other fabrics. While all of these sound like the ideal fabric for all your clothes, there is a downside. Being that it is a manmade fiber, the rate at which it decomposes is absolutely ridiculous. It takes nearly 20 to 200 years for polyester to decompose!!!! This literally boggles my mind. It makes me want to run to my closet, go through every piece of clothing and sell or gift away the ones made from polyester and never buy polyester ever again. On the total flip side of this, it only takes cotton around 1-5 months to fully decompose. This is because cotton is directly from the earth, and that’s basically where it belongs. In the graphic, you’ll see the lifecycle of a cotton jacket vs. a polyester jacket. Take note of the very top sentence. Under cotton, it mentions how the cotton plant is grown totally naturally. On the polyester side, it begins with the extraction of oil and gas. This is definitely not natural.
In order to reduce
the impact of polyester on the planet, there are a few simple things we as
consumers can do. For one, we have to
read the labels on the clothing we buy.
If we as the free thinkers and sustainable innovators of the fashion
industry begin to understand the true impact we are having just by buying
certain materials, we have the power to change it. Aside from reading our labels, what can we do
about the polyester we already own? Considering now we know that isn’t that
easy to just “throw it out”, we need another solution. As a lot of you know, I am a huge advocate
for upcycling. If our polyester t-shirts
aren’t doing it for us anymore, we can sew patches of scrap fabric onto them or
cut them to turn them into cute reusable grocery bags/tote bags. We as consumers hold the true power to make a
big difference.
Frankie- Nice post and great sharing with the class yesterday! Thank you! I really admire your drive when you discuss the decomposition rates of poly vs. cotton- so passionate!
ReplyDeleteSomething to think about.... How do you propose you can get more consumers to read labels? Or- how do you propose you can get the fashion industry to understand their true impact? To change the future we need to offer ways (tangible ideas) to get there..... Nice post and thank you!