~Revive Repurpose Reimagine~
I created this easy-to-read guide (infographic) about microplastics to better understand what microplastics are and their origin, and how individual citizens can minimize their use of plastics on a daily basis. And here you go…
In January 2024, I decided to stop using paper towels as a small experiment to reduce landfill waste and replaced them with Smart Towels. Paper towels biodegrade, but we dispose of them in plastic bags that do not biodegrade. Rather, plastic breaks down into microplastics and is in everything and everywhere!
Smart Towels are 10″x 10″ squares upcycled from old t-shirts. And this is the 1st anniversary of using Smart Towels exclusively, except for those nasty situations.
🌳Trees are cut down and harvested for pulpwood, which is turned into paper fibers.
🌳Logs are transported to a pulp mill.
🌳Logs are stripped of bark and fed into chippers, leading to small, uniform pieces for pulping.
🌳Chips are turned into pulp through a chemical process, a.k.a chemical pulping.
🌳The pulp is bleached, typically with bleached with chlorine-based compounds or hydrogen peroxide.
🌳Pulp is pressed and dried into sheets.
🌳Sheets are textured/embossed and rolled.
🌳Rolls are cut, wrapped, and packaged.
🌳Distribution to retail stores for customers to purchase.
🌳Single-use paper towels → disposed of in single-use plastic garbage bags that do not biodegrade and end up in landfills.
And there you have it…
an endless loop of cutting down trees, reducing logs into wood pulp, making the wood pulp into paper towels, packaging them with single use plastics, shipping them to retail stores for people to buy, use them once, throw them away in plastic garbage bags that end up in landfills, and repeats.
Switching to reusable cloth towels isn’t just about reducing trash. It’s about…
My 2-person household averages 3 rolls of Bounty paper towels per week.
–3 rolls of paper towels, $2.50 per roll /week x 4 weeks = 12 rolls per month, $30 per month
–12 rolls of paper towels/month x 12 months = 144 rolls per year, $360 per year
–144 rolls of paper towels/year x 5 years = 720 rolls per 5 years, $1,800 per 5 years
That’s a lot of paper towels thrown in the trash and eventually ending up in landfills! A huge plus is the money you saved to do as you wish.💲💲💲
1. My household will continue to use Smart Towels instead of paper towels, knowing we are helping the environment, living an eco-conscious and sustainable life, and saving money.
2. Thinking of the added landfill pollution from paper towels to the environment was the impetus to change the way I thought about paper towels, which changed my behavior and those in my household.
3. The endless loop paper towel companies create, and the idea that we cannot live without paper towels is smashed because we can.
4. Reusable Smart Towels is a quiet rebellion against a throwaway culture, and a reminder that positive individual actions impact the world we live in.
Long before the word ‘sustainability’ was a ‘thing’, protecting the environment has always been part of my philosophy of living. Some call this practice resourceful, careful, cost-effective, or prudent. I consider the practice of sustainability to be smart, creative, practical, resourceful, grateful, and environmentally conscious. Why discard an unwanted item into the landfills, when it contributes to environmental pollution and degradation of our planet?
In a previous post, the amount of textile waste the world produces is explained, and it is staggering.
92 million tons of textile waste per year. Old clothes make up most of this trash, but it also includes other textiles such as towels, curtains, tablecloths, and carpets. Billions of new clothing items are designed, created, and sold annually.
Businesswaste.com
Much of the textile waste is from consumers and households getting rid of old clothes. Businesses also throw away all sorts of textiles – from stores with clothes they can’t sell to hotels getting rid of old towels and bedding. Some of this is recycled, but only 12% of textiles are recycled globally. That means 88% or 81 million tons of used clothing and other textiles are thrown into landfills, releasing greenhouse gases that contribute to climate warming.
An old black and white sweater of 100% wool was languishing in my closet for years, and had not been worn for years. I subscribe to the concept of Swedish Death Cleaning…the idea of purging unwanted things regularly. The idea of Swedish Death Cleaning is to minimize the time, energy, and work required for your designated executor in the event of you passing away. Rather than recycling or donating to my local thrift or charity store, I decided to upcycle the sweater.
The first step in converting a 100% wool sweater to a handbag is to felt the sweater. P.S. The sweater must be 100% wool or another type of 100% animal fur (cashmere, alpaca, merino, mohair, etc.) for felting. Felting wool creates a denser fabric through agitation and friction. You felt a 100% wool sweater simply by washing it in the washing machine and drying it in the dryer or air drying. I recommend one cycle of washing and drying; otherwise, the 100% wool sweater will shrink too much in size.
Decide on the dimensions of the handbag you want – length, height, and width. Make a paper template or simply cut the sweater according to the desired measurements. Using your sewing machine or hand sewing, sew the outer sweater shell, sew the lining with a zipper, and add interior pockets. The handles are vegan leather and attached to the bag by hand.
And there you have it! An old 100% wool sweater reimagined into a smart upcycled handbag, complete with vegan leather straps.
Note: the photo above is a side-by-side view of plastic items on the left, and clothing made with synthetic fibers (plastic fibers) used by fast fashion companies.
Here is an interesting story about a backyard experiment on the biodegradability of natural and synthetic fibers used in clothing and many other industries. The takeaway is this: when left outside exposed to the elements, natural fibers decompose while synthetic (plastic) fibers do not. Natural fibers such as cotton, wool, linen, silk, ramie take about 1 year to break down into organic matter. Plastic fibers (synthetic) like polyester, acrylic, nylon, spandex, and olefin do not break down. Meaning, synthetic fibers, which are man-made and made with petrochemicals, can break down or decompose in 500 years…essentially never.
Below are photos of the experiment performed by Jane Milburn of Textile Beat on the biodegradability of synthetic and natural fibers.
So, the backyard experiment on natural and synthetic fabrics and their biodegradability that Jane Milburn did in 2018-2019 shows that natural fibers decompose within one year, while synthetic fabrics retained their shape and color, which is not a good sign.
To read more on the sustainability of natural versus man-made (synthetic=plastic) fibers, go to Project CECE.
Ann Marie bonneau
We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly.
We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.
FEATURES | NATURAL FIBERS | SYNTHETIC (PLASTIC) FIBERS |
| Source | Plants/Animals | Made from chemicals (man-made) |
| Eco-Friendliness | Biodegradable | Plastics are forever, non-biodegradable |
| Comfort | Soft and breathable | Much less breathable |
| Durability | Less durable than synthetic | Very durable |
| Maintenance | Moderate (needs care) | Low (easy care) |
| Cost | Typically higher | Cheaper |
| Environmental Impact | Farming & water-intensive | Environmental pollution & energy-intensive |
For me, deciding whether to choose natural fibers vs plastic fibers in my clothing and other home goods is a no-brainer! Since sustainability and caring for the earth are my goals, buying clothing and other textile goods made of plastic fibers goes contrary to my beliefs.
Synthetic fabrics, such as polyester, nylon, and acrylic, are harmful to the environment due to their reliance on fossil fuels and their non-biodegradable nature. These materials are derived from petroleum, a non-renewable resource, and their production emits significant greenhouse gases, contributing to climate change. Additionally, when synthetic clothing is washed, it sheds tiny plastic fibers known as microplastics, which often end up in oceans and waterways, harming marine life and entering the food chain. Unlike natural fibers, synthetic fabrics do not decompose easily, leading to long-term pollution in landfills. Overall, the environmental footprint of synthetic textiles is substantial and deeply concerning.
Sources:
How many of you have men’s white dress shirts lying around? You know what I mean. The stiff business uniform men wear to work, funerals, weddings, and other formal events. In my house, plenty of white stiff shirts came through the mail and were then recycled to charity shops when the shirts were no longer considered wearable. This cycle of purchasing and recycling went on for years, until one day I decided to challenge myself to create something useful and fun. After experimenting with a vintage detachable collar pattern and a white shirt, and several iterations later, a 1920s vintage detachable petal collar was created.
Sometimes the most ordinary things become extraordinary
when given a second chance
Have you ever wondered what microplastics are and if these tiny pieces of plastic affect the environment, our health, or contribute to climate change? Do you ask yourself, “What can I do to reduce microplastics?”Then, you are in the right place!
1. Primary microplastics: These microplastics are intentionally manufactured in tiny sizes for various uses in industries. Microplastics are used in industrial abrasives for sandblasting, and plastic pellets in manufacturing processes. Exfoliating creams and toothpaste used to be manufactured with microplastics, but are now banned in many countries.
2. Secondary microplastics: These microplastics result from the breakdown of larger pieces of plastic or plastic dust. These are unintended microplastics. The degradation of larger plastics to microplastics comes from several sources. Ultraviolet radiation (sunlight) weakens plastic polymers, causing them to become brittle and fragment. Physical forces such as waves, wind, abrasion, and friction break plastic objects into smaller pieces. Heat or high temperatures accelerate the breakdown of plastics and contribute to fragmentation. Chemical reactions with the environment, such as oxidation or hydrolysis, further degrade plastics into micro-sized particles.
Nearly every industry uses plastics for packaging (food, medical), construction (pipes, insulation), automotive (parts, interiors, tires), electronics (casing, wires), healthcare (devices, syringes, medication containers), and consumer goods (toys, flooring, furniture, appliances). Plastic is versatile, lightweight, durable, and cheap to manufacture. Its usefulness is ubiquitous. But there is a serious downside to plastics, and that is microplastics…the breakdown of plastics into tiny fragments or shards that infiltrate everything. Below are a few examples of the origin of microplastics:
As mentioned above, microplastics are secondary microplastics, the end result of the breakdown of plastics through several degradation processes. Fragmentation of plastics from sunlight (UV), heat, oxygen, and physical abrasion (like rubbing clothes on furniture) causes the plastic fibers (polymers) to become brittle and break down into smaller and smaller pieces. Fibers from plastic clothing fabrics like polyester and nylon, carpets, and upholstery constantly shed plastic fibers through friction and abrasion, which become part of household dust. Physical wear & tear of everyday items like plastic toys, containers, and packaging develops microcracks and roughens plastic surfaces, and releases microscopic particles into the air.
Interestingly, a study called “Microplastics in House Dust from 12 Countries and Associated Human Exposure,” published in Environment International, indicates that people are exposed to microplastics mainly through the dust found inside their homes.
Although microplastics do not directly emit greenhouse gases, they influence climate change in significant indirect ways. Let’s look at the ways microplastics affect the climate.
| Indirect Ways Microplastics is Affecting Climate Change | Effects of Microplastics |
|---|---|
| Over 99% of plastics are made from oil, gas, or coal (fossil fuels). | The emissions created during the lifecycle of plastic products are greater than 1.8 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) annually, and are projected to double by 2060. |
| Oceans absorb about 25–30% of global carbon dioxide (CO₂) | Harms marine life that stores CO₂, like phytoplankton and zooplankton (tiny carbon-capturing organisms). These natural biological carbon dioxide pump organisms ingest microplastics, which reduces their ability to absorb CO₂. Microplastics also disrupts digestion and reproduction. |
| Microplastics affect soil health | Healthy soil captures carbon dioxide. When microplastics contaminate soil, the structure of the soil weakens, microbial activity in the soil changes, and plant growth is stunted. This reduces the soil’s ability to absorb CO₂. |
| Microplastics release greenhouse gases | Plastics release methane and ethylene when exposed to sunlight. Both are greenhouse gases. While emissions from individual items are small, it is the scale of plastic waste , worldwide, that makes this a growing concern. |
–Avoid bottled water…microplastics concentration is very high in bottled water because of the plastic bottle.
–Use reusable shopping bags, reusable bottles, straws (metal, bamboo), and utensils (metal, wood).
–Choose products packaged in glass, metal, cardboard, or compostable materials. OR bring your own reusable containers or carriers.
–Choose natural fibers and quality construction (cotton, hemp, linen, silk, wool, and other hair fibers). Plus, natural fibers are breathable and better for your skin.
—Avoid fast fashion brands that produce clothing with nearly 100% synthetic (plastic) fibers.
–Learn about the environmental impact of fast fashion brands whose business models are neither sustainable nor earth-friendly.
–Reuse containers before recycling. Reuse glass containers for storing, milk containers for seedlings, metal and aluminum cans for lawn sculptures.
–Avoid burning plastic waste, which releases toxic fumes.
–Recycle properly. Clean all recyclables before putting them curbside or recycling at your local recycling center.
–Support your local composting programs or compost your garden.
–First, read the laundering label, and wash synthetic clothes less often to reduce fiber shedding
–Use cold water to reduce fiber shedding.
–Avoid purchasing synthetic (plastic) clothing.
–Look for polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), or PMMA (poly methyl methacrylate) in acrylic/plexiglass, in the ingredient lists. Although these are banned in many places, some products still contain them
–Choose bar soaps over bottled ones, and recycle the single-use plastic wrapping and paper labeling.
–Choose wooden, metal, or bamboo household goods instead of plastic.
–Avoid glitter unless it is made with plant cellulose. Traditional glitter is a microplastics pollutant. It is made from thin plastic films, usually polyester (PET), coated with reflective aluminum and dyes, and then cut into tiny pieces.
–Support bans on single-use plastics. As of 2024, 12 states in the US have banned single-use plastic shopping bags.
–Vote for extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws are rules that require companies to take responsibility for what happens to their products after people are done using them. This includes paying for and managing collection, recycling, or safe disposal. Instead of taxpayers or local governments covering these costs, the companies that make the products do. These laws also encourage companies to design products and packaging that are easier to recycle by charging higher fees for hard-to-recycle items, and the money collected helps fund recycling programs for things like electronics, batteries, paint, and packaging.
–Support your local recycling center programs.
Sources:
—Microplastics originate from synthetic clothing, tires, degraded packaging, and industrial sources.—
—They indirectly worsen climate change by interfering with carbon storage, releasing greenhouse gases, and promoting more fossil fuel extraction.
—Citizens can significantly reduce microplastics through everyday choices in clothing, laundry, transportation, and product selection.
–Small lifestyle changes can significantly reduce microplastics pollution.
Do you know how paper towels are made, and the costs to the planet?
🌳Trees are cut down and harvested for pulpwood, which is turned into paper fibers.
🌳Logs are transported to a pulp mill.
🌳Logs are stripped of bark and fed into chippers, leading to small, uniform pieces for pulping.
🌳Chips are turned into pulp through a chemical process, a.k.a chemical pulping.
🌳The pulp is bleached, typically with bleached with chlorine-based compounds or hydrogen peroxide.
🌳Pulp is pressed and dried into sheets.
🌳Sheets are textured/embossed and rolled.
🌳Rolls are cut, wrapped, and packaged.
🌳Distribution to retail stores for customers to purchase.
🌳Single-use paper towels → disposed of in single-use plastic garbage bags that do not biodegrade and end up in landfills.
And there you have it…
an endless loop of cutting down trees, reducing logs into wood pulp, making the wood pulp into paper towels, packaging them with single use plastics, shipping them to retail stores for people to buy, use them once, throw them away in plastic garbage bags that end up in landfills, and repeats.
Switching to reusable cloth towels isn’t just about reducing trash. It’s about…
Reusable Smart Towels is a quiet rebellion against a throwaway culture, and a reminder that individual actions impact the world we live in.
I loved paper towels! But disposing of them in plastic garbage bags does not decompose. However, when paper towels are thrown away in plastic garbage bags, they can’t decompose and end up producing greenhouse gases. I thought there had to be a better way, and there is. Smart Towels are upcycled from old, unwanted t-shirts. Click here to read my original story of Smart Towels.
During my 2-month experiment of solely using Smart Towels, I learned my household used paper towels for tiny spills, as napkins, cleaning the house and household items, covering bowls when microwaving, and much more. It was an eye-opener to waste and its contribution to the current environmental pollution and climate crisis. Paper towels are biodegradable, but we place used paper towels inside plastic garbage bags which end up in landfills and contribute to greenhouse gases as they (plastics) break down.
“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it”
unknown
My 2-person household averages 3 rolls of Bounty paper towels per week.
–3 rolls of paper towels/week x 4 weeks = 12 rolls/month
–12 rolls of paper towels/month x 12 months = 144 rolls per year
–144 rolls of paper towels/year x 5 years = 720 rolls/5 years
That’s a lot of paper towels thrown in the trash and eventually end up in landfills!
Here are my 3 takeaways from doing this mini experiment:
1. My household will continue to use Smart Towels instead of paper towels, knowing we am helping our wallet, the environment, and living a eco-conscious and sustainable lifestyle.
2. Although paper towels are no longer purchased, existing ones are tucked away in the closet, only to be used for those nasty cleanups. 3. My household stepped out of the endless loop of using paper towels by switching to Smart Towels.
Teaching children about sustainability, caring for the Earth, and being environmentally conscious is one of the most important investments we can make for the future…for our planet and for their own well-being. Kids are the next generation of leaders, innovators, scientists, and decision-makers, and the attitudes and habits they develop early in life will shape the world they inherit and create. By helping them understand the interconnectedness of nature, human activity, and cultures, we give them the tools and knowledge to make choices that protect rather than harm the environment.
By learning to care for the Earth through conserving resources, protecting ecosystems, reducing waste, protecting wildlife, and supporting renewable resources, kids develop respect for nature and awareness of how their choices impact and shape the world. Introducing these habits early in children’s lives not only helps preserve the planet’s health for future generations but also inspires innovative thinking and responsible decision-making.
Environmental and sustainability education encourages critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and innovation. As the challenges of climate change, pollution, and resource scarcity become more urgent, today’s kids will need creative and critical thinking and collaborative skills to find sustainable solutions. Teaching them to care for the planet helps them not only respond to these challenges but also imagine a better world that benefits everyone.
Kids are like sponges – they watch and learn, they absorb information fast, and find it easy to form long-lasting habits.
THEEDUTECHPOST.COM
U.S. Green Ribbon Schools (ED-GRS is a recognition program established in 2011 and is run by the U.S. Department of Education. The Green Ribbon Schools recognition is not a certification…it is a federal recognition award for schools that demonstrate strong sustainability practices in 3 core areas: reducing environmental impact, promoting health & wellness, and providing strong academic sustainability education. A school is eligible for the award only once, so the list changes every few years.
Take a look at the 2024 Green Ribbon honorees (schools, districts, etc.) on the U.S. Department of Education website. Is your school a Green Ribbon school?
Australia’s Waste Wise Program provides accreditation to primary schools that integrate sustainability education and practices. There are 491 accredited Waste Wise primary schools across Australia, and Coolbinia Primary School is one of them. Coolbinia has embedded sustainability practices throughout its culture and programs. The sustainability program provides students with the skills, knowledge and instills the values to live sustainable lives through various hands-on activities and projects.
Below are the main domains of Australia’s Waste Wise Program:
K.R. Mangalam World School is based in Delphi, India. 8 primary school locations incorporate environmental stewardship as a core focus. Environmental stewardship is defined as integrating ecological, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability into educational programs.
At K.R. Mangalam World School, Lucknow, the sustainability program is named ‘Terra Care’ and is incorporated throughout all programs. Under Terra Care, kids participate in live sustainability projects, zero-waste initiatives, and hands-on workshops. There are student-led clubs that run awareness campaigns, environmental drives, and sustainability projects within the school. Terra Care and its student-led clubs help kids understand what sustainability is and how to bring about positive change. According to the Terra Care program, it teaches lifelong values – environmental responsibility, social responsibility, and ethical values.
Below are a few resources with worksheets, activities, and educational infographics to help you teach sustainability, zero-waste philosophy, and environmental stewardship to kids. You’ll find ideas and activities to help start students on a path of sustainable living and development.
Sustainable living is important for good personal and environmental health. It is what will keep us and kids going. The time to learn and teach about it is NOW.
NB: The header photo is ai generated. My command to ChatPGT was: ‘Transform-a-100-percent-wool-sweater-into-a-useable-or-wearable-item.’ Pretty cool image and very interesting.
Long before the word ‘sustainability’ was a ‘thing’, protecting the environment has always been part of who I am. Some call this practice frugal, economizing, saving, or prudence. I call the practice of sustainability smart, creative, practical, resourceful, grateful, and environmentally conscious. Why discard an unwanted item into the landfills, when it contributes to environmental pollution and degradation of our planet?
In a previous post, the amount of textile waste the world produces is staggering at…
92 million tons of textile waste per year. Old clothes make up most of this trash, but it also includes other textiles such as towels, curtains, tablecloths, and carpets. Billions of new clothing items are designed, created, and sold annually.
Businesswaste.com
Much of the textile waste is from consumers and households getting rid of old clothes. Businesses also throw away all sorts of textiles – from stores with clothes they can’t sell to hotels getting rid of old towels and bedding. Some of this is recycled, but only 12% of textiles are recycled globally. That means 88% or 81 million tons of used clothing and other textiles are thrown into landfills, releasing greenhouse gases that contribute to climate warming.
Years ago, I purchased a men’s 100% wool sweater and a Tatago mat at a thrift store with no idea what I was going to do with either of them. A few winters later, I needed slippers to keep my feet warm, and that is when the idea of upcycling the 100% wool sweater into slippers occurred.
The first step in converting a 100% wool sweater into slippers is to felt the sweater. P.S. The sweater must be 100% wool or another type of 100% animal fur (cashmere, alpaca, merino, mohair, etc.) for felting. Felting wool creates a denser fabric through agitation. You can felt a 100% wool sweater simply by washing it in the washing machine and drying it in the dryer. I recommend 1 cycle of washing and drying; otherwise, the 100% wool sweater will shrink too much in size.
To make sweater slippers non-slip, a non-slip fabric needs to be attached to the soles. Here’s where the Tatago mat comes in. Tatago is a company that produces a towel with silicon dots to place underneath yoga mats to prevent them from sliding. This thrift store find is perfect to use for making sweater slippers non-slip!
After measuring my feet, a template was sketched and used to cut out the various pieces from the felted sweater and Tatago mat.
Here are two sets of slippers made from one 100% wool men’s sweater. And they are much warmer than the retail knitted slippers I had at the time, at a significantly lower cost.
The mission of fast fashion companies is profit and their business model is to produce enormous amounts of trendy, inexpensive clothing to flood the consumer market, whether or not the demand is present. The main textile/fabric used to manufacture fast fashion clothing is primarily synthetic (plastic) fabrics or a blend of fabrics, e.g., 99% polyester, 1% elastane (Spandex/Lycra). Elastane is added to any type of fabric to give stretch or elasticity to the clothing item.
Fast fashion clothing is neither compostable nor biodegradable because most fast fashion, if not all, garments are made from chemicals and petroleum-based compounds called polymers. Examples of petroleum-based fibers are polyester, acrylic, nylon, acetate, polypropylene, Spandex, microfiber, aramid, olefin, and rayon (a semi-synthetic fiber). Most discarded clothing ending up in landfills is from fast fashion brands, where the synthetic fibers used to create the garment do not biodegrade, but break down into microplastics.
If you are interested in minimizing your fast fashion purchases and purchasing more environmentally friendly garments, read the clothing labels!
Story: For this post, I trekked to a local thrift store and snapped a few pics of fast fashion clothing labels. Others are from my closet, and a friend’s closet, to show the range of natural and synthetic (plastic) fibers used in the garments we wear.
This label is Old Navy, a widely known fast fashion company. The label states: 69% acrylic, 16% polyester, 10% viscose, 5% polyamide. There is NO breathable natural fibers in this sweater. Actually, polyamide can be made from either natural or synthetic fibers, but because Old Navy is a fast fashion company, let’s assume the 5% polyamide is synthetic. If it were a natural polymer, Old Navy would have stated so.
Label for ZARA, a notorious fast fashion company, whose main mission = profits. So, even though the fiber content is not shown, this sweater is most likely made of 100% synthetic (plastic) fibers.
This sweater label is made of 80% polyester, 15% nylon, and 5% wool. The only biodegradable fiber is WOOL, and it is only a 5% component of the entire garment. That means 95% is made with synthetic fibers and is not biodegradable. Rather, the plastic fibers break down into microplastics, which end up in waterways, foods, marine life, wildlife, and in our bodies.
Because of the 5% wool fiber content, the fiber content of this garment is termed ‘blended’. When and if you no longer want this garment, upcycle it, donate or gift it because it is not biodegradable or compostable.
When I heard the clothing brand Smartwool, my initial thought was, “Oh, this jacket is made of 100% wool.” Not so. The fiber content is: 45% wool, 45% polyester, 5% polyamide, 5% other fiber. Note: polyamide can be natural fibers (silk, wool, collagen) OR synthetic (plastic). I’m going to assume the 5% polyamide is synthetic since it follows the 45% polyester. The fiber content is considered mixed/blended.
The history of Smartwool is interesting! Developed by ski instructors in 1994, the brand is now owned by Vanity Fair. Their commitment to using renewable energy and sustainability is commendable. Just wish the fiber content is 100% wool, which would make it compostable and biodegradable. Read more here…How sustainable is Smartwool?
This garment is made with 100% cashmere, a natural fiber, and is compostable and biodegradable.
The fiber content of this garment is 53% cotton, 14% wool, 11% viscose, 11% nylon, 11% polyester. In sum, 67% fiber content is natural (cotton and wool), and 33% is synthetic/plastic. This garment is made with mixed fibers because of the use of natural fibers and synthetic/plastic fibers, and is termed ‘blended.’
The label shows 52% silk and 43% rayon fibers. Silk is a natural fiber, and rayon is semi-synthetic. Meaning, greater than 52% is natural fibers because rayon is made by dissolving natural cellulose, typically bamboo or beech and pine wood pulp, with a chemical solution. The mixture is then pushed through a spinneret to create long filaments, which are woven or knitted into textiles.
The fiber content of this garment is blended because of the combination of natural and semi-synthetic fibers
This knitted garment is made of 85% linen + 15% nylon…a blended fabric.
The fiber content on this label is 100% rayon, a semi-synthetic fiber, also known as manmade cellulosic fiber. Rayon is not a natural fiber. Manmade cellulosic fibers start as natural materials but are then processed with chemicals to change their composition into rayon.
Rayon is created from regenerated cellulose, typically derived from wood pulp or bamboo. The cellulose/wood pulp is broken down, combined with chemicals, and forced through spinnerets to make the rayon fiber filaments.
This is the first garment made with 100% natural fiber – cotton! Cotton is biodegradable, and therefore, sustainable.
This garment is 100% synthetic (plastic) because it has 90% nylon + 10% elastane. Meryl nylon is a brand name for a line of microfibers, and Spandex (elastane) is a very stretchy synthetic fiber made from polyurethane (a synthetic polymer).
Elastane/Spandex/Lycra was invented by Dupont, the chemical company, in 1959.
Spandex and Lycra are brand names for elastane.
Most clothing today has ‘blended’ fiber content. As seen in the eleven examples above, 9 of the 11 garments are either ‘blended’ or 100% synthetic. And only 2 are 100% natural fibers, which means the 2 garments are compostable, biodegradable, and therefore, sustainable. So what should we do with clothing that is outdated or no longer wanted?
♻️ Textiles and clothing with mixed fibers, such as natural fibers with synthetic fibers, this is called blended fibers (aka mixed fiber content), and is not compostable. Natural fibers biodegrade, but the synthetic fibers (plastics) do not, and break down into microplastics.
♻️ With garments with blended fiber content, upcycle them into other useful items/products. A few examples: adult clothes into kids’ clothes; denim jeans into potholders, coasters, bucket hats; sweaters into slippers with non-skid proof soles; mens’ dress shirts into kids’ clothes; sweaters into pillows. When upcycling garments, sewing skills are necessary. Take up sewing and watch your creativity soar!
♻️ Shop at thrift and charity stores.
♻️Donate & recycle clothing to friends, homeless shelters, women & children shelters, half-way houses, non-profits.
♻️ ️When purchasing new clothing, buy from eco-friendly companies.
♻️ Take up sewing, make your own clothes and make new friends! Not only will you learn a lifelong life skill, but you will also get many compliments and your creativity will take off.
