Can Polyester Save the World?

[YankeyMCC]

(snip)
With rainbow piles of sweaters and T-shirts that often cost less than a sandwich, stores like Primark are leaders in the quick-growing “fast fashion” industry, selling cheap garments that can be used and discarded without a second thought. Consumers, especially teenagers, love the concept, pioneered also by stores like H&M internationally and by Old Navy and Target in the United States, since it allows them to shift styles with speed on a low budget.

But clothes — and fast clothes in particular — are a large and worsening source of the carbon emissions that contribute to global warming, because of how they are both produced and cared for, concludes a new report from researchers at Cambridge University titled “Well Dressed?”
(snip)

(snip)
In their efforts to buy green, customers tend to focus on packaging and chemicals, issues that do not factor in with clothing. Likewise, they purchase “natural” fibers like cotton, believing they are good for the environment.

But that is not always the case: while so-called organic cotton is exemplary in the way it avoids pesticides, cotton garments squander energy because they must be washed frequently at high temperatures, and generally require tumble-drying and ironing. Sixty percent of the carbon emissions generated by a simple cotton T-shirt comes from the 25 washes and machine dryings it will require, the Cambridge study found.
(snip)


(snip)
People hope “we’ll find new sources of energy, so we won’t really have to change much,” Dr. Allwood said. “But that is extremely unlikely.”

To cut back the use of carbons and make fashion truly sustainable, shoppers will have “to own less, to have less stuff,” Dr. Allwood said. “And that is a very hard sell.”
(snip)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/fashion/25pollute.html?ex=1327381200&en=757d51302b8b9276&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[Dean Martin]

1. Polyester is an oil product.....

Last time I checked.

[july302001]

2. Funky title...need to read the article

If you take two minutes to read the article, it's actually got some really good points.

Most clothes are made in China, which relies overwhelmingly on coal for power...which fuels global warming. If everyone would buy fewer $9.99 t-shirts, China would use less coal...

The article isn't asking us to all dress like John Travolta . It's asking us to buy fewer clothes, hold onto them longer, and to air-dry the ones we have. Clothes *do* last longer when they're not tumble-dried. You don't need drier sheets. Cotton fades less and polyester/blends don't get staticky/form those little fuzzy balls. I've washed most of my stuff *way* more than the 25 times mentioned in the article.

When it's not ice-cold outside, I put my things on an outdoor clothes line. I use the sun's energy to dry my clothes, when the weather is appropriate. When it *is* cold outside, I dry a couple garments on a rack close to the heater. They help humidify the air, which helps my sinuses, too.

I have a tumble-dryer, but I only use it if I'm really in a hurry.

I bought a LOT of clothes back during '98-2001 and a moderate number since then. Now, I'm cutting back on the number, mostly for time management reasons.

And, it IS true that a polyester blouse dries a LOT faster than a cotton t-shirt on an outdoor clothes line. I have both, because I don't wear any one sort of thing all the time.

The article is just asking people to think about buying a smaller assortment of clothes, and to consider not using the tumble-dryer when it's possible to use an outdoor clothsline or an indoor rack. It's kind of the same concept as using compact fluorescent light bulbs.

[Dean Martin]

3. Some of us don't have that option

When you live in an apartment like mine, drying clothes on a line isn't an option.

[kestrel91316]

9. I use one of these:

http://lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=2793&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=673&iSubCat=728&iProductID=2793

Lehman's dryer rack, if the linky is broke.
I put mine in the tub to drip, then at bedtime it can go in the living room for better air circualtion. Been using it happily for 8 years.

[NJCher]

11. no prob!

I would love to have fewer clothes and I am in the process of getting rid of a lot of mine. I get tired of going through so many clothing items in search of something to wear.

I had a friend who decided he'd had enough of it and started wearing only black Levis and black T-shirts. It was comical to look at his closet because that's all there was: a row of black T's and a row of black jeans. While I might not be ready to adopt the "uniform" approach of my friend, I'm close.

It's easy to cut down on dryer use and I agree that clothing holds up much better without being subjected to the dryer. A lot of times and especially in the winter, I will spread the clothes out over the radiators. After they've dried, I fluff them up with a dryer sheet on the no-heat cycle in the dryer to soften them.



Cher

[Porcupine]

4. This is just not an option in the West.

A polyester shirt on the typical 95 degree day in California's interior is like wearing fiberglass. You will chafe and rash. Also many of us live in apartments or condos where clothes lines are forbidden.

Rayon and bamboo fibers dry quickly and are comfortable but they are not widely available and rayon wrinkles in ways not socially acceptable.

As horrible as it sound unless we free people up from 40 hour work schedules we will never meet climate change goals. Much of the changes we would need to make involve trading personal time for carbon emissions. Where is this great mass of time to come from?

[YankeyMCC]

5. I understand

you raise legitimate points and I'm certainly not convinced about the virtues of polyester in particular either. I just posted the article because it does raise the kind of questions we need to be asking ourselves going forward in our personal choices and policy decisions at the government level.

Your points are directly related to the underlaying issue that I think is expressed in the portion I highlighted. There are indeed challenges and each region will face a different set of challenges to met the goal of shifting the paradigm from unchecked consumption to quality of life.

[Kolesar]

7. Try a Coolmax (R) polyester knit shirt

http://www2.llbean.com/product/38338.htm

The only time I ever go into the hot West is on vacation. On my hikes, I wear a long sleeve tri-blend cotton, nylon, polyester shirt I bought years ago. It is by Sportif. Rather like this: http://www.sportif.com/jump.jsp?itemID=993&itemType=PRODUCT&RS=1&keyword=long+sleeve or http://www.sportif.com/jump.jsp?itemID=1066&itemType=PRODUCT&RS=1&keyword=long+sleeve


What I find attractive is fabrics that don't need hot-air tumble-dried for the wrinkles to fall out. The spin cycle on my 1100 rpm washing machine gets almost all of the water out of these garments.

Happy trails!

[mainegreen]

6. Personally, I dont feel like wearing tinder for clothing.

That, and I was my clothes at an eco friendly laundromat that uses the sun to heat most of their water and recycles dryer heat.

:)

[NNadir]

10. There was a wonderful alternative to dryers in the old days.

It was called a "clothes line."

My town actually had a huge controversy over the possibility that some one might use "clothes lines." It was thought to be too lower class.

[Javaman]

8. I will never forget this little factoid from the 1970's polyester boom...

3 large coke bottles (the giant ones) are the equivalent to a 3 piece polyester suit.