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Fabric info

Fabric info Opinion pieces Recycling and waste Sustainability thoughts

Challenges with fibre blends and recycling

written by Kate

Late last year I heard Dutch sustainable fashion consultant Roosmarie Ruigrok speak about fibre blends and textile recycling. The context: the talk was at Impact Hub Amsterdam and mostly about fabrics. It was geared towards a group of sustainable fashion entrepreneurs who were on a start-up course for social impact and sustainability based businesses. As alumni (I did the same course in 2019) I was invited to attend.

One interesting topic of conversation was fibre blends and the end of life / recycling challenges that they pose.

Fibre blend: fabric that is not 100% of any type of fibre. E.g. 95% organic cotton / 5% elastane – a fairly typical cotton jersey – is a blend. Or 50% linen / 50% cotton. Or polycotton (=polyester + cotton)

Recap: how are fabrics and clothes recycled?

First, a quick reminder. Recycling can be done in two ways: mechanical (i.e. shredding) or chemical (“dissolving”). The most common method is mechanical and has been going on for many many years. This is literally shredding clothes for things like car insulation or mattress stuffing. Other times fibres are respun into yarns and then rewoven into cloth. Recycled cotton is becoming more common; you might have seen this in some RTW jeans. I interviewed Annemieke of Enschede Textielstad about this, read that here.

The clothing that gets recycled is typically things that are unlikely to be resold second hand. Using the UK as an example, you can give your clothes to a charity store or put it in a textile bank. If it’s not good enough quality to sell in stores locally, and not good enough to be exported to other countries for resale in the second-hand market, then it gets recycled. My blog post here discussed the afterlife of textiles once you chuck them out.

Image from Unsplash. The image owner captioned this "Sorting through hundreds of tons of clothing in an abandoned factory for a social mission called Clothing the Loop" (Cambodia) — *Image from Unsplash. The image owner captioned this “Sorting through hundreds of tons of clothing in an abandoned factory for a social mission called Clothing the Loop” (Cambodia)*

What’s the problem with fibre blends?

The chances of clothes made from fibre blends having a second life as fabric/clothing are more limited than if the clothing is 100% of one fibre. From what I heard, if you shred fabric that is of unknown or variable composition, it’s hard to get the “settings” right when you spin and weave. On an industrial scale, this is not ok (I’m sure this is not the only issue by the way). There is a project called Fibresort which does what it says on the tin. It is a technology that sorts textile waste based on fibre – clothes are put on a conveyor belt, scanned, and sorted into different piles based on composition. More on that another day once I’ve done the reading.

What about chemical recycling?

Roosmarie didn’t seem too keen on chemical recycling, because it requires additional chemical processing to separate the fibres and dissolve them into a pulp. The industry news that I’ve read over the last few years is that chemical recycling is promising, but not widely used on a commercial scale. Because of this, at this moment, Roosmarie encouraged the businesses in the room to choose unblended fibres if at all possible.

But is all chemical really bad? Compared to the benefit of using recycled material? I don’t know enough about it to give an informed view. But Tencel™ for example is produced with chemicals but in a mostly closed-loop process – that’s generally accepted as a “good” fabric. And none of the fabric you buy goes from e.g. cotton on a plant to the fabric for your shirt without chemical help.

Does that mean I should stop buying fibre blends?

If you’re looking only from the perspective of the afterlife of clothing, fibre blends probably are not the best way to go for reasons outlined above.

But not using or wearing blends also sounds utterly impractical to me. I’m not a purist that wants to compost my clothes after I’ve worn them out and then used them as cleaning rags. I mean, I don’t know about you but I quite like cotton jersey (what you buy in fabric stores is typically 95% cotton and 5% elastane), especially in underwear and for kids clothes. And anything with stretch really. And what about sweatshirts?! And leggings!

Fibre Mood Frikka in blue and orange sweatshirt fleece with a fibre blend of polyester and cotton made by Time to Sew — My Fibre Mood Frikka (affiliate link) is made from sweatshirting from a local fabric shop – it contains a large proportion of polyester, as with many fleeces

But organic cotton jersey or french terry is sustainable, right?

Well, organic cotton jerseys are blends, typically with 5% elastane (synthetic). From a fibre / recycling perspective it’s probably not ideal. And in fact, you could say it seems counterintuitive to blend synthetics with something like organic cotton. There was some interesting debate about this at the talk. But I think ultimately: why bother creating fabric that no one wants to use or wear?!

The addition of synthetics is performance-related.

Synthetics can lend certain stability to fabric. Elastane in jersey is needed for recovery, so it doesn’t bag out after 1 wear and go saggy. As well as elastane, you’ll sometimes see polyester or rPET (recycled polyester from plastic bottles) in sweatshirting or interlock.

The sustainability “benefit” is the organic part, so there is a component that was ethically farmed and processed. The bad is the afterlife and the microfibre pollution during washing. It’s not just synthetic fibres that cause this, there are studies that show linen and cotton fibres in the oceans as well. Read my blog post here.

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So once again I’m going to end by saying that choice you make is always going to have both pros and cons when it comes to sustainability (yup, I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again!) I like to think about these things purely from an intellectual viewpoint because I find it an interesting topic. But when it comes to buying choices, I buy what I think I will make a successful garment. And you decide what’s right for you!

January 27, 2021 4 comments

Fabric info Interviews Sustainability thoughts

Organic cotton: mythbusting

written by Kate

Of all the sustainability topics out there, the issue of greenwashing is pretty problematic. Organic textiles – especially organic cotton – if certified GOTS, is one of those textiles widely accepted as being “sustainable”. Does that mean it’s better? For me, the social issue around labour is the most important and undoubtedly there are good things about GOTS (for an intro into organic, see my blog post here). When it comes to the environmental angle, there is more than one side of the story. I collated a list of myths I’ve read recently in marketing and Dr Grace Peng did the mythbusting for me.

Scroll to the bottom to read about Grace and why it’s worth listening to her. In this world that is littered with misinformation, I hope it gets you thinking twice about the marketing that you read. The interview is long but I promise it’s a good one!

1. Organic cotton is softer

Cotton is made up of sugars linked together into polymer chains, cellulose. Link the sugars one way, and they are carbohydrates, that we can eat for sustenance. Link them another way, and they become cellulose, which is indigestible to humans.

Longer chains of cellulose are softer. How do you get longer chains? More sunlight and cool nights. This is why cotton is largely grown in arid climates, with predictably hot days and cool nights. Nothing to do with organic.

2. Organic cotton is more eco friendly because it’s 80% rainfed

Rain, at the wrong part of the growing/harvest cycle, is bad for cotton. So cotton is often grown in places where you can count on no rain. It is a crop that takes lots of water which needs to be applied just at the right time, with no rain at random times to mess up your planting and harvest. This is a recipe for water scarcity.

The places where organic cotton’s water needs can be met by rainfall alone is minuscule compared to the places where drought-tolerant GMO cotton can be grown. (GMO cotton is engineered to use less water).

3. Organic contains no nasty chemicals and is pesticide free

Organics use pesticides. Sometimes really nasty ones. But, they are “natural pesticides”. When most organizations test for pesticides, they test only for the ones forbidden by organic standards, the newer synthetic ones.

As an aside, this is also the case in food … I read a paper involving testing for both organic and conventional pesticides. The conclusion was that organic kale had the highest pesticide residue! Kale is a brassica, which means cabbage worms love it. Bt kale resists cabbage worm, but organic kale does not. (see Grace’s blog post on it here)

It’s absolutely crazy that one copper salt is “organic” while another one is “synthetic”, and therefore, not organic. However, they both poison the soil with heavy metals.

Also, growing organic pesticides in another field, grinding it up and applying it is a lot of work… the only difference between the organic and manufactured version of the same pesticide is more land, water and labour. Read here about neem oil which is an allowable plant based pesticide.

Cotton is prettier in vases than the fabric production method. Image courtesy of unsplash.

4. GMO is not “natural”

Organic was a good-hearted effort begun in the 1970s. But technology has changed so much, and organic is not the best land stewardship anymore. GMOs are not allowed in organic agriculture. Organic gives up all the gains in water savings, innate pest resistance, longer staple length to meet an ideal from 50 years ago.

Organic cotton is sprayed with Bt, which is derived from a bacteria that lives in soil. Instead of spraying the bacterium on the crop, as they do in organic agriculture, the gene is spliced into the crop. The GMO bit is adding the Bt to it. Read more here.

Yes, bollworm is just one pest and should be used in conjunction with crop rotation and other IPM, (integrated pest management techniques). With GMO Bt cotton, you really can produce cotton with less water, land and pesticides. 97% fewer pesticides is the norm in both the US and Australia.

But Grace, what about the True Cost documentary highlighting the plight of farmers in India?

Monsanto’s business practices is a different issue from Bt or GMOs in general. I will not defend Monsanto’s business practices, but I will defend science and evidence. The good news is that gene splicing does not have to be done by for-profit companies.

Brazilian scientists produced Bt cotton independently, which they will presumably allow their own farmers to use without charge. Farmers will then be able to save seeds and use it without paying patent royalties. The Gates Foundation is doing something similar but will release it to farmers all over the world.

Bt provides resistance from the most common pests. Farmers don’t want to spray pesticides. It’s bad for the land, bad for themselves, and costs money.

Notes on herbicides and GMO

Monsanto sells Bt cotton with or without Round-up (glyphosate) resistance. So Monsanto makes money selling you the seed and the Round-up. Over-use of glyphosate is creating super-weeds. It’s like over-use of antibiotics breeding super-germs. Monsanto says that they sell Bt cotton with our without the gene for glyphosate resistance. 85% with, 15% without. Farmers can buy the resistant seeds and hope that weeds are not enough of a problem in that field, in that year, that they need to use it. It’s an insurance policy.

The US cotton industry says that it’s 1% organic, 15-16% cleaner cotton, and the rest conventional. Worldwide, the cleaner cotton portion keeps growing, which I suspect is why the Australian numbers look so good compared to 30 years ago.

Spraying so much glyphosate is really bad. But, I have a friend who is a farmer, who says that one application per year, applied at just the time when weeds are taking off, makes a big difference in his yield. Super-weeds are not a problem for him because the glyphosate cuts down the weeds just enough to reduce the work required to deal with the remaining weeds using mechanical means (hoeing or pulling). Weeds compete with the crops for water, nitrogen, etc. So they really do reduce crop yield.

Weeds weeds weeds …image courtesy of Unsplash

5. Organic cotton is biodegradable, conventional cotton is not.

Any cotton, along with linen, hemp, and some rayons, is just cellulose. You can compost it. But, landfill is problematic. Landfills have been excavated and found banana peels that haven’t degraded!

Also, the dyes and finishes and synthetic thread are contaminants. Microfibers in sewage is a whole other subject. In southern California, SoCal, we recycle our water as much as possible. So our water treatment will remove suspended microfibers. In northern California, where water is more abundant, they just minimally treat the water for disinfection and dump that into the bay. They have microfibers in their bay, which eventually flush into the ocean. But, that’s a sewage treatment problem that is easily fixable. Just add money and infrastructure. SoCal had to do it because water is so scarce here. Other places can do it if they want to.

Note from Kate: blogpost here on how landfills work, and this one here on microfibres. Bear in mind there are also cotton and linen microfibres the ocean that haven’t degraded.

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OK, so that’s some pretty good myth-busting and logical arguments there… bottom line is that you need to do your own reading and form an opinion. PS. if you need an intro into organic, check out my blog post here. It’s from 2017, but still relevant.

Kate xx

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Grace Peng …scientist, mom, sewist, lifelong slayer of BS. Her background is in mathematics, chemistry and she holds a PhD in Chemical Physics from the U of Colorado at Boulder and the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics. Since then, she has been paid to work at the intersection of environmental science, environmental policy, data analysis, data management and software engineering. She has not been paid to be a mother, daughter, wife, and community volunteer, but she works plenty hard at those jobs, too.

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July 6, 2020 5 comments

Fabric info

Review: introduction to natural dye workshop

written by Kate

Did you see my last post thinking about the sustainability of natural dyes? I’d pretty much decided that if I was ever going to try it, then it would be for fun rather than sustainability. Recently I went to workshop with textile artist and natural dye specialist Lucila Kenny in Amsterdam to see a dyeing demo, have a go myself, and ask questions.

What did we dye?

During the workshop we used 3 dye pots which gave deep pink, brown, and mustard. A variety of substrate samples were dyed so we could see the differences in the tones. On the bottom row of the picture below you can see the samples, left to right: white cotton, unbleached cotton canvas, bleached cotton flannel, flannel dyed with logwood, polycotton.

Brazilwood dyed samples on the top row. Original pre-dyed samples on the bottom row.

Then we added ferrous sulphate (iron) to each of the pots to change the colour, and we each got to dye a scarf in a new colour to take home with us. Mine went into the bath that was originally brown (dyed with guayacan), and it came out dark grey! FYI it’s cotton and silk (bleached white pre-dye). Here’s the before and after dye colours

Guayacan samples. I’m not usually a fan of brown (doesn’t go so well with my skin tone) but I like these shades. Maybe it’s all in the styling!

Guayacan and iron produced a dark grey colour on bleached cotton/silk

All the while, Lucila was giving valuable information about the dyeing process, the history of dyeing, and showing us what’s possible colourwise. Here are some fun facts from my notes.

Fun facts about natural dyeing

Natural dyes have been around for 4000 years. The first synthetic was created in 1859 by a chemist in a lab in England whilst he was in search of a malaria vaccine.
The plants that yield the most stable colours are madder root, weld seeds, and indigo leaves. (Dyeing indigo is apparently a little more advanced, we didn’t cover it in the workshop). No plant yields a green colour – the irony! You have to overdye a yellow with a blue.
Don’t bother trying to dye on synthetics. We had a piece of polycotton in our samples and in all cases it looks like you spilled something on it.

Learning to dye is like learning to cook. Patience, time, and enjoyment of the process is key.
– Lucila Kenny, natural dye specialist

Avocado natural dye samples by Lucila Kenny, skins and stones give different colours

My top 3 tips from the workshop

1. Natural dyes are unpredictable

There are many variables that will affect the final colour. pH of the water, the plant growing conditions, the fabric you use etc. It’s like cooking – everyone can follow the same recipe but it might still be a little different. What I liked is that Lucila pointed out that you can dye in any way you want as long as you follow the basic principles. For example, it’s accepted that you need to clean your fabric first before you dye. Some dyers swear by pre-washing with soda ash (sodium carbonate) but you could also just do a washing machine wash with your usual detergent.

Note! There will probably be fabric shrinkage when you dye so you need to allow for that. Fabrics have to cook in the dye bath for about an hour at 80 degrees. Lucila estimates shrinkage at c5-10%. Note to self – dye fabric before it gets sewn rather than the final garment to minimise risk…

Onion skin natural dye samples on different substrates — Onion skin natural samples on different substrates. L-R: white cotton, unbleached cotton canvas, bleached cotton flannel, flannel dyed with logwood, polycotton.

2. Safety matters

Be careful with what you’re using, both plant and mordant wise. For example, alum (potassium aluminium sulfate) is a common mordant with lots of other non-mordant applications. It is considered “safe” – but it is an irritant. Common sense says to wear gloves and to keep supplies and equipment away from children.

3. Getting started with dyeing doesn’t have to be complicated

Ever read those tutorials which have so many steps that you can’t even face getting started? Good news is that it doesn’t have to be so complicated.

A minimalist natural dyer’s equipment list

A big pot (compulsory). It needs to be big enough that your chosen item to dye can move around freely. Can you use a cooking pot? Well, if you only plan on dyeing with food waste and using for example, soy milk as a fixing agent, then maybe not. But all dye resources I’ve read recommend using a pot that is not used for cooking purposes. Makes sense to me if there are non-food dyestuffs/mordants/fixing agents in use.
Bucket, wooden spoon and gloves are likely somewhere in your house already.
Electric camping stove (optional). Again for separation purposes to keep it away from your food prep area.

natural dye workshop setup — Lucila Kenny’s workshop setup (one more pot to the right, not pictured)

Simplifying dyeing

There are a ton of methods and recipes available to you and there is no one right way. To simplify, you could, for example, choose dyestuffs that don’t need a mordant. If you do use one, you can save time by adding it directly to the dyepot just before adding the fabric (as opposed to pre-soaking).

Lucila’s onion skin dye: Cook onion skins at 80 degrees for an hour (if you have time, soak them for a day beforehand). Once cooked, strain out the skins. Then add the alum then fabric. Cook fabric for an hour, ensuring frequent stirring to ensure an even non-splotchy dye job. Then rinse, let dry and be prepared to be pleasantly surprised at the tone of the eventual colour. Ta-da!

Onion skins in pot for natural dyeing — Onion skins for natural dyeing sourced from an Amsterdam food charity (collected during the onion sorting process). You’d need to eat a lot of onions if you plan to collect them yourself, this is 150g worth.

Ideas for natural dyeing more efficiently (and maybe “sustainably”)

Choose plants that can be used for dyeing without a mordant, e.g. those high in tannin. This does mean though that not every colour possibility will be available to you. Some say you can use aluminium pots for a little extra fixation help without adding to the process. Note, however, that Jenny Dean states in her book Wild Colour that the dye particles may actually be attracted more to the pot than the fabric. So she recommends using stainless steel pots (did I say already there isn’t one right way?!)
See if you can adjust your processes a bit. e.g. fabric needs to be pre-washed, can you put it in with your regular washing? If you need a mordant to fixate your colour, can you add it into the dye bath instead of pre-soaking your fabric in it? (though Lucila acknowledged results may be better if you pre-soak). Head to the comments on my other blog post and read all of great tips from a lady named Christine.
Reuse your dye bath until there are no more dye particles. The colours won’t be as intense in subsequent dye baths but it would be such a waste to not use it, and personally I really like the tonal shades.
Recognise that natural dyeing is a luxury and treat it as such. As well as being time consuming, there’s not enough space to grow the plants for dyeing if we all wanted natural dyes; and to quote my scientist friend Grace, natural dyes can double the amount of land required to produce fabric.

Yellow and brown natural dye samples — Many plants give yellows and browns – this is one of Lucila’s samples (different dyestuffs). The irony of natural dye is that plants don’t give green.

Have I changed my mind on whether I’ll be doing natural dyeing at home? Well, I must say I had a super time at the workshop thinking about all the different possibilities. Looking at the fabrics and colours really made me happy and excited in a way that other crafts like knitting do not. I have Jenny Dean’s Wild Colour book (also recommended by Lucila) as a resource so I’ll be reading that in detail and thinking about whether I want to buy a big pot and an electric camping stove.

Till next time
Kate

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February 12, 2020 1 comment

Fabric info Sewing Sustainability thoughts

Are natural dyes sustainable?

written by Kate

Natural dyes – another buzz term in the sustainable world and I’m starting to see it become more popular in the sewing world. Being sucked in by pretty pictures of Instagram feeds of popular natural dye bloggers and the experience of some of my sewing friends, I thought to do some experiments myself. But before that comes the research on the how-to, and I’m afraid that my conclusion is that natural dyeing is not an activity to be done on a regular basis in the name of sustainability.

Let’s dig in. Marketing can make anything look sexy and here’s the kind of pretty picture that sucked me in. I remembered my friend Pilar bought this book awhile ago, and in the interest of immediate reading I bought the ebook by the same author. From there, I moved on to less sexy looking natural dye webshops and websites, googling chemical names, and speaking to my chemical engineer friend.

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A post shared by Pilar ❤️ (@pilar_bear)

What is a “natural dye” anyway?

The “natural” in the term “natural dye” typically refers to the materials that do the dyeing – i.e. plants, as opposed to the unpronounceable synthetic chemicals you’d see in a Dylon dye for example.

Why natural? Well, it feels good to be using plants in your (or someone else’s) garden and things from food waste. Also, it’s unlikely to kill you. I’m referring to avocado skins/stones, pomegranate skins, onions, lavender etc. in terms of things that are generally accessible in daily life. Of course there are loads of other plants and trees used for dyeing which aren’t found in the average European garden (indigo for example) – humans have been using plant-based dye for thousands of years. A lot of these are available in extract form (powder) from webshops.

Anyway the point here is that I’d beware that the term natural automatically means good, even though a lot of us have been conditioned to subconsciously believe that. Every website recommends you wear gloves during your natural dyeing activities. And let’s not forget that not all plants and natural stuff are good guys, there is plenty of toxic stuff as well (arsenic anyone?)

Natural dyeing is still dyeing

…And still consumes resources. For home dyeing, the sustainability point feels just as bad to me regardless of whether you are using natural or synthetic. But “sustainable” is really your interpretation. If you dye something to a colour you like and then wear it to death, that might be more sustainable than buying something new. You decide.

My synthetic dyeing experience

Linen dress post-dye It’s stayed that colour for the last year since I dyed it.

Dylon home dye for me has been effective. In summer 2018 I dyed the above blue linen dress and since then it been washed SO many times – without any colour fade. Unlike the original navy of the linen which faded to the point of looking really old within a few months (thus prompting the dye experiment). Note this was also Merchant and Mills linen which is not cheap! I remembered just before the dye exercise to take an un-pretty before picture with my phone. You can see the fade lines after not a lot of wash/iron/wear.

What didn’t feel good was that it did require me to buy 500g of salt to go with the dye. That’s 4 small supermarket shakers of salt for 1 piece of fabric. And all of the salt went down the drain. Not to mention the water to rinse off the excess dye particles.

The next time I dyed something was with a Dylon pod which went in the washing machine, and I made some black faded clothing “intense black” again. Like the hand dye, it worked great. I don’t know how much water the machine uses vs what I used for the hand dye. But I did have to run another full machine cycle afterwards, and scrub the seals which were stained with black.

How to use natural dye

Natural dyeing at home is much more a faff than something like Dylon. You still need to use water, and in many cases, a synthetic chemical boost is needed depending on the choice of plants. Additionally, there’s often talk of different techniques to avoid colour fade and needing to take special care post-dyeing. Here’s the basic dye process.

Clean fabric – using a regular washing machine cycle, or soaking with soda ash (sodium carbonate).
Pre-treat fabric – if needed, soak it in a chemical solution or soy milk to make the fabric absorb the dyestuff better and “fix” the colour (more on this below). After soaking, the excess moisture then needs to be spun out in a washing machine, or fabric might need washing again depending on what you used to soak.
Dye fabric – in a pot with water and choice of dyestuffs, and apply heat. Once dyed, rinse again.

Chemical use in natural dyes

Chemical is a word you’ll never see used in marketing. With natural dyeing, step 2 above on pre-treating fabric is referred to as “mordanting”. I’ve used the term pre-treatment because whilst it’s common to call soy milk a mordant, experts like guru Jenny Dean will say it is isn’t a “true” mordant as the soy doesn’t form a chemical bond. Rather, the soy milk might be a good sizing agent to help absorption. This is an important differentiator because it’s about how well the dye will “stick” to your cloth and what colours you get. You can see on Jenny’s website how the effects of the dye differ depending on mordant choice.

Update 20/1/2020 – an Instagram commenter was unhappy that I wasn’t explicit enough in stating that not all dyes need a mordant. For absolute clarity, the way I understand it is that there the use of mordants/pre-treatment depends on the fibre type and the dye. Soy milk is often used for cellulosics as a natural alternative to alum, whereas protein fibres might not need a mordant at all. But is it better from a sustainability perspective to be making or buying soy milk, compared to using a few grams of powdered alum? I wouldn’t know, though I suspect it’s a bit like baking a cake. To have aeration, you could use baking powder, bi-carb, whipped eggwhites, a combination of stuff. There are many ways to yield a similar result, you decide what works best for you.

A nice flatlay (not by me) of soy milk, courtesy of Unsplash. Feeling inspired to try dyeing?

Common mordants are metallic salts of chromium, tin, iron, copper, and aluminium. Chromium and copper were common as well but usage “has declined due to toxicology concerns” according to this article. One of the most popular mordants you’ll see is potassium aluminium sulfate. Because my eyes glaze over when I look at chemical names (I barely passed chemistry in high school), I asked my chemical engineer friend about it. He checked the Material Safety Data Sheet which said this is a stable and non-flammable chemical, but still requires protective gloves when handheld. Kind of kills the flowers and butterfly vibes evoked by the term “natural dye”, no?

So are natural dyes sustainable or not?

On a home level, I’d say to do natural dyeing for the fun of it – not because you want to be sustainable. Besides time, you need a lot of water and energy with the soaking, rinsing, washing, heating on the hob, and use of your washing machine. And as someone who grew up drinking soy milk, it seems like a bit of a waste to be buying or making it for the purposes of soaking fabric, and then chucking it out.

A former fashion lecturer of mine said if you really want to be sustainable with any kind of dyeing then bag up 10m of fabric and send it to a dye house – at least they have the proper infrastructure for disposing of wastewater etc. from a dye bath.

She also told me that on a commercial level, you don’t see natural dyes much. If you’ve gotten this far in the post, you can already see why, right? 1) Synthetic dyes perform more predictably than natural ones. 2) Fashion in general has a very high demand for colouration of textiles. 3) Finally, is growing plants for dyeing purposes really a good use of resources?

Leave it to you to consider. I’m actually going to a natural dye workshop to find out more about the process and ask questions, so if my views on this change, I’ll update this post. And of course I’ll write another post covering the workshop!

Till next time,
Kate

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January 17, 2020 10 comments

Fabric info Sustainability thoughts

Should my choice of fibre to make clothes be top priority?

written by Kate

One of the most common questions I get from friends, family, random emails in my inbox is about the choice of fibre for clothing. I had it again the other day so I thought I would write about my thought process behind my standard answer to this. The question usually goes something like this:

“Is this <insert fibre/fabric> sustainable?
“I don’t know which fibre to choose for project X. Can you help?
“I think <insert fibre/fabric> is sustainable. Where can I buy it?

My answer always involves two elements: 1) there is no such thing as the most sustainable fibre (refer to my blog post about the most sustainable textiles here). 2) I would choose functionality and use over fibre sustainability.

I actually like getting these kinds of questions because it shows that individuals want to think about what they are using to sew. Unfortunately, for me to give an accurate answer tends to put people off or put sustainability in the “too hard basket” – because guess what? There is no black and white answer and I would be lying if I told you that there was.

Why the choice of fibre is not my top priority

Update 13 September 2020: the way I sew is not the biggest action I can take as an individual against climate change. Transport and diet are far more important. See Grace’s blog post here (she’s an environmental scientist that cares about data and truths).

Fashion Revolution #30wears challenge

There are alarming statistics about how little we wear our individual items of clothing. Whilst we might think it is more applicable to the non-sewist than sewist, I think we’ve all had our share of sewing fails that don’t make the 30 wears cut. But really, the most sustainable garment is the one that’s already in your closet. Having said that we know it’s not practical to buy or make nothing. In which case I’d suggest the love-it-use-it test is most important. After all, what’s the point making something super mindfully from a sustainably produced fibre if it’s not suitable for the project? You probably won’t get much joy out of the end result.

Image credit: Fashion Revolution fanzine #2 loved clothes last

As an aside, a friend of mine asked me just the other day about fleece alternatives for a dinosaur beanie requested by her 5-year-old. My answer: if you already have the fleece, he likes it and promises he will wear it, then just use it! Truthfully I couldn’t think of anything else to suggest given the circumstances. In terms of fabric, for example, cotton jersey/interlock would be too floppy. Too much interfacing would make the beanie too stiff. Wool is probably going to be scratchy on the forehead. You get the idea.

There is no right answer when it comes to “sustainable” fibres

Whilst some fibre types in the same family lend themselves to comparison (e.g. viscose vs lyocell), for others it would be like comparing apples and sushi (e.g. cotton vs leather).

Synthetics are one category of fibre that some purists love to hate. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – when I’m riding a bike I’ll take a polyester raincoat any day over a cotton canvas one any day. It’s lightweight, more windproof and dries quicker in case of heavy rain.

Also spare a thought for if you ever wear or sew with jersey. If you want stretch, then you need the nylon (elastane) to ensure you have some recovery (i.e. so it doesn’t stretch out and stay that way). But Kate! What about microplastics? you say. Yes, I know there is a microplastic problem and I’ve decided to keep my clothes for longer and wash them less than avoid synthetics completely. But that’s my personal opinion, it might not be yours.

Finally, if you’re buying something “sustainable”, the term generally applies to the way that something is manufactured. How long you choose to keep/use something, care for it and then dispose of it has a big impact on the sustainability profile of that item.

Individual piety doesn’t change the world

That’s Clare Press (sustainable fashion journalist) quoting Australian economist Richard Denniss in her book “Rise and Resist”. It’s not just Richard in this camp – Extinction Rebellion co-founder Clare Farrell also said the same thing to me once. But if it is true that individual actions don’t matter, then why do we even bother? Because counterintuitively, the opposite is true. If we ALL engaged in some kind of collective action, that has an impact. But we can’t collectively engage if individuals aren’t engaged right? A bit chicken and egg in my mind.

The flip side – why you might want to care about your choice of fibre

Fibre choice may be one way that you choose to engage in sustainability. Maybe you don’t want to use thrifted fabric or you can’t find anything you like. Maybe you prefer to buy the prints that you like and use up every scrap in various projects. Whatever the reason, you want to buy new fabric – so you think you should buy better. Great! Then choose something that is produced more sustainably if you can – bearing in mind that fibre sustainability is not clear cut.

What do I mean by this? Well, in the absence of any widely accepted fibre sustainability ranking, you need to choose what you are passionate about. If you want to be anti- plastics, avoid synthetics. Worried about pesticide use? Choose organic. Does it all seem too hard? The fashion industry has come up with some rankings and indexes on the sustainability of fibres. But these should be treated with caution.

A note on using fibre sustainability ranking lists and indexes

The benchmark that I have found easiest and clearest to understand to laymen like you and I was developed by a consultancy called Made-by. Whilst the firm doesn’t exist anymore, as recently as last year I still saw it being quoted as a source of info. But the benchmark is not without problems. Besides being quite a few years old (I want to say 2012 but I’ve lost the original file now except the picture), the basket of measures on which is based is determined by the consultancy – so entirely subjective.

Another index is the Higg MSI. This looks at the impact of materials production. In contrast to the Made-by list, Higg will tell you that linen has a higher impact than cotton, with viscose having a lower impact than both linen and cotton. This goes against all kinds of conventional sustainable fashion wisdom which tells you that linen is preferable to both cotton and viscose.

The point is that depending on what measures you use and what you perceive to be the real problem areas (do you think the environmental impact of agricultural is worse than extracting oil from the ground?), what is sustainable to you is going to be different to what it is for me. At least by making a choice, you’re sticking with the principles that you believe in.

I care about my choice of fibre but it’s not my top priority

I love clothes and fabric, so fibre choice is one way I try to engage in living a more sustainable life. But I have a lot of clothes. So it is just as important (if not more) to me to get the best use out of them, which means thinking about use. Ultimately it is just personal choice. There are so many things I could better in terms of an eco-friendly life (transport, diet) that I don’t think it’s worth being overly stressed about fabric choice!

Want to think more about the most sustainable textile debate? Click here to read my interview with Dr Mark Sumner from Leeds University on what is the most sustainable textile to buy. Spoiler alert: there isn’t one.

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December 6, 2019 12 comments

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