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Comment by asteli | Hacker News Reader

Re: microfibers making it into water systems:

This is a con to synthetic fibers that I hadn't been considering before. Recently I learned that cotton has a pretty high environmental footprint (land use, highest pesticide use of any crop, high water consumption) [1], and thus started moving some of my clothing purchases toward polyester-blends (trades the cons of cotton for petrochemical and energy use).

Does anyone have a good grasp on the total environmental impact of these options, considering the entire chain (mining/extraction/cultivation -> disposal/environmental release)?

[1]: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/CBD-Fiber-Selection... [edit: added source]

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Checkout organic cotton and hemp. Much lower environmental footprint.

You can get some really durable, long lasting, organic cotton and hemp blended clothing which is way more durable, breathable and comfortable than you might imagine.

Patagonia (brand) is an easy place to buy organic cotton Tshirts and pants.

Does it really have a smaller footprint? I'd love to see numbers

Not adding eternally polluting particles to the environment seems like it must have smaller footprint

Organic != pollutes less. For example, some organic farms use more than an order of magnitude more (~20x) organic pesticides than regular farms use regular pesticides (by weight). Many of these organic pesticides have the potential for serious health risks. One organic pesticide, Rotenone, which was banned in the US in 2005 but reapproved in 2010, causes "Parkinson's Disease-like symptoms in rats, and has the potential to kill many species, including humans." [0]

Organic farming also often requires more resources (land, water, etc.). The ecological damage of that extra resource use (soil erosion, water diversion) could far surpass any pollutants non-organic farms spew. [0]

I don't know anything about cotton specifically, though.

[0] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogs... (see myths 1 and 3)

> I don't know anything about cotton specifically, though.

According to this article[0] which quotes a cotton industry group, organic cotton takes >2x more water to grow, which is in line with what I'd heard anecdotally.

[0] https://qz.com/990178/your-organic-cotton-t-shirt-might-be-w...

Hemp does not require any use of pesticides. Cotton, on the other hand, uses a wildly disproportionate amount of pesticides for cultivation acreage - stats I’ve seen are 25% of pesticides for 3% of land cultivation.

Perhaps the organic farmers I know are true edge case radicals, but they don’t use any pesticides at all. All soil and weed management tactics.

I believe they are comparing it to regular cotton.

Is it possible to buy a 100% hemp t-shirt?

Also, how about linen shirts? I hear linen is much easier to grow compared to cotton?

It’s logically impossible for organic cotton to have less a footprint.

You can put your microfiber clothes in a specialized bag when washing to help prevent the fibers from making their way into the water systems. Here is one example of a bag: https://www.patagonia.com/product/guppyfriend-washing-bag/O2...

The bag is also plastic..

It's a nylon (polyamide) mesh. It's not going to spew microfibers in the same way that a polyester fleece would. For reference, I found you some micrographs of the materials we're talking about:

poly fleece: https://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/wp-content/uploads/201... nylon mesh: https://assets.fishersci.com/TFS-Assets/CCG/product-images/F...

I'm also looking for quality research on the total cost from cradle to grave. Most of what I've seen either only considers part of the cost or gives advice without explaining the reasoning...

For example: it's amazing how much discussion there is around using paper cups vs a ceramic cup. Or when plastic actually might be the best packaging material (keeping food fresh for longer and being lighter to transport).

Can anyone here point to non-biased, well researched articles on this topic? I would imagine academia is a good place, but I don't know where to start.

The best thing to do is probably to buy high quality clothes and keep them for a long time. Don't buy t-shirts (especially printed t-shirts) that wear out quickly and get disposed of. Buy shirts and take care of them. Don't wash them often. Wash then minimally when they become dirty. They'll last you many years this way.

There's this same argument with recycling, reuse, etc. I.E how many times do I have to use my cloth bag before the resources it took is less than that of a normal paper bag. Recycling is the same way, IIRC, aluminum is the only thing that's cheaper to recycle, energy wise.

I really wish more studies would look into the Energy per Ton for creating our consumer products.

That's one thing to consider, but it's ignoring a major aspect - biodegradability. Yes, a plastic bag is in some ways more efficient per ton than a cloth bag but doesn't decompose safely and fast, cloth usually does.

What's worse, adding some inert foreign molecules to the environment, or adding some CO2, excess nitrates, and excess phosphorous, taking down a bit of native vegetation, and revolving some more soil?

I really don't know the answer, but I bet everybody on the anti-plastic crusade doesn't know either. I would really like if somebody cared to do some unbiased studies on this (not the ones full of flaws reinforcing the author desired answer - whatever that it).

You mean, is natural gas extraction and processing more harmful than agriculture and recycling?

It seems plausible that a cloth bag requires a comparable amount of petrochemicals to make than a plastic bag, agriculture is quite fuel intensive and uses a bunch of other nasty chemicals in large amounts, while a few grams of plastic require just a few grams of oil - for me it's hard to tell whether growing sufficient cotton for a single bag (which is quite a bunch of cotton plants) can be done with a few grams of fuel.

Thankfully, this is studied by experts for their entire lives and we don’t have to learn the answers by speculating on Hacker News.

I’ll note that what you’re comparing petroleum based manufacturing to is the most pointlessly intensively harmful and wasteful form of agriculture – growing conventional cotton.

Even without considering the amount of mining required by agriculture, the answer is still non-obvious.

I agree.

>inert foreign molecules

Problem is they're often not inert. The polymers may be, but the bisphenol plasticizers, UV stabilizers, dyes, brominated fire retardants, mold release agents, etc may not be, and they leach out over time.

Do they become reactive inside of living beings? Or just outside due to UV catalyzed hydrolyze?

The molecules I'm speaking of are already reactive. Again it's not just the bulk polymer, there are a bunch of "special ingredients" added to most plastics, plus contaminants introduced during recycling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Plastics_additives

How do we know that microplastics and other particulate in say human bodies or foods are somehow "inert"?

On the bright side, because it doesn't easily biodegrade, it is a form of carbon capture. If you ignore all of its other bad effects.

Taking oil out of the ground and burning part of it to create plastic out of the other part, and then throwing it away or incinerating it, isn't carbon capture :)

Wool is a great material to consider as well.

I want to believe that materials like wool are the answer, but I fear they're not. Raising animals is carbon intensive, and all those sheep need somewhere to graze. If people switched to wool clothing on a big scale, it would probably lead to mass deforestation.

Sheep can graze in [re]forested pastures, ie silvopasture. This also sequesters carbon.

http://stevegabrielfarmer.wixsite.com/silvopasturebook/singl...

https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/silvopasture

I agree that it's not the answer, but I think one of the main lessons we should be learning is that monocultures are not the answer either.

Here in New Zealand, much of our agriculture has shifted from sheep to dairy cows. There's a growing fear (I don't know how justified it really is) that synthetic milk, or even meat, will become a reality and wreck the traditional dairy industry. So, in our situation, maybe more wool use would be a good thing.

Especially for socks during exercise. I find it helps keep my feet dry much more than cotton oe synthetics.

Last year I discovered the joy that is merino wool ski clothes. A friend had a pro-discount on Icebreaker and I stocked up before a ski trip. Excellent stuff.

Here's a good/entertaining video that compares synthetic to merino for ski layers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh8BFytupwA

His conclusion is that the synthetic was just as warm, but the merino wool did a better job of dissipating .. aromas... and stayed 'clean' longer.

It's unfortunate that a lot of the 'wool' out there is still blended with synthetics for cost or supposed-technical reasons.

I suspect that bamboo clothing is the way to go. Bamboo grows anywhere and requires very little input and no pesticides. I don't know what the carbon footprint of turning it into thread is, though. I suspect still smaller than polyester. Plus, bamboo clothes are super soft.

Bamboo itself is "green" but the process to turn it into textiles is anything but. The marketing of bamboo textiles relies on your assumption, which is why it has so far been doing well.

https://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-fashion/whatever-happ...

https://blogs.wsj.com/informedreader/2007/11/06/bamboo-has-a...

The second article requires a subscription to WSJ but you can find the same information elsewhere on the web.

My philosophy for a long time now has been to take good care of existing clothing/textiles, purchase used as much as possible, and purchase fewer items overall - only what I absolutely need to live my life in a reasonable manner, without excess or mindless purchases.

I did not examine the claims in detail, but a few sport teams announced they will use a kit made from recovered ocean plastics. Probably worth looking into it?

[1]http://www.espn.com/soccer/blog/the-toe-poke/65/post/3569720...

I wonder why hemp fiber didn't get compared independently. From a quick internet search: it is one fiber used in Tencel blend. I think hemp scores better on land usage, but not necessarily in the other categories. Is that your take?

Have you examined organic cotton?

Organic isn't always better for the environment. I can sort of accept people's motivations for organic produce when it's a food product, but for textiles it really doesn't make much sense. Organic cotton requires more water, more land, and more energy than conventional or GMO cotton: https://qz.com/990178/your-organic-cotton-t-shirt-might-be-w...

A better answer in any case is to buy less stuff.

(You might want to add that you're not OP i.e. asteli, the person AdamN directly asked. you have the same writing style, I was almost confused.

If you do edit I'll delete this comment.)

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