Fabric For Living: A Guide to Organic Textiles
(Page 2 of 4)
July/August 2008
By Jessica Kellner
Wool
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Obviously a natural material, wool presents its own social and sustainability issues. Though usually produced without injuring sheep, the animals may graze in pesticide-ridden pastures and the wool may be dyed with high-impact, petroleum-based chemicals. Finnegan buys undyed wool from farms that use no pesticides in the pasture or chemicals in the feed.
Jamie Bainbridge, director of materials research for Nau, an outdoor clothing company with environmental ethics, says wool presents some dilemmas but is among her favorite materials. “It’s challenging because you have to think about the whole lifespan of the animal and who it’s being raised by—there are a lot of issues to solve,” she says. Bainbridge is also concerned about chemical finishes that prevent shrinking, which are commonly used by textile makers.
Hemp
The hemp plant is naturally resistant to weeds, has a relatively short growing time (maturing in half the time of cotton) and produces strong, workable fibers for textiles and other products. However, according to an article published by the Reason Foundation, a public policy research and education organization, the process of turning woody hemp fibers into fabric is more energy-intensive than the process used for cotton.
It’s difficult to fully estimate hemp’s ecological and technological potential because growing it is illegal in the United States—related to the marijuana plant, industrial hemp is a different, nonhallucinogenic variety—and so selective breeding and high-tech fiber production has been limited. Hemp cultivation bans in the United States also mean all hemp products in this country were made from hemp shipped from abroad. China is the world’s greatest exporter of hemp textiles, but they are also produced in Canada and throughout Europe, South America, Asia and the Middle East.
Recycled polyester
Made from recycled PET bottles (plastic water or soda bottles) or other post-consumer and post-industrial synthetics, recycled polyester deters waste from the landfill. Mechanically recycling polyester—chopping up water bottles, melting them down and extruding the product into yarn—is a relatively low-energy process. Chemically recycled polyester, on the other hand, requires the complex process of breaking down fibers and building them into a polymer again.
Still, there are advantages to this more complicated process, Bainbridge says. “With mechanical recycling, you can’t take a piece of colored plastic and put it into the feed; you can only use clear water bottles and uncolored industrial waste,” she says. “With chemical recycling, you can take a used garment, a water bottle and post-industrial waste, throw them into the hopper and remake polyester out of it. It has a very broad feedstock base—a lot of different kinds of waste can go into that. As far as we know, we can recycle chemically recycled polyester over and over, infinitely.”