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Comment by blacksmith_tb | Hacker News Reader

I think that blames the victims a bit too much, it's analogous to "people need to stop buying food in single-use plastics" - I would put the onus on the manufacturers to fix their products and their distribution, rather than the end users. What's the alternative to laundering your clothing, realistically?

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Don’t buy synthetics is a start.

Vote to pass legislation that taxes synthetics and the money is used for mitigation.

Company’s make what consumers want.

I agree that it'd be better not to buy synthetics as they stand, but that requires manufacturers to shift their production to natural fibers. I think regulation / remediation sounds like a good way to encourage that shift. Consumers buy what's on offer - if everything in the market was natural fiber, consumers would choose accordingly, otherwise they are likely to choose whatever meets their needs (which maybe low-price, or high-fashion, but without more education and alternatives, won't be cleaner water).

It seems challenging as full-cotton shirts seem to be more prone to shrinkage and aren't necessarily as soft and resilient like the cotton/poly blends that are all so prevalent in just about every fabric out there.

Which synthetics? Does that include polyester? Rayon?

I believe polyester microfibers are the main culprit[1], rayon is made from cellulose so I would expect it to break down easily.

1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/20/microfib...

No. Under capitalism, companies make what their consumers can afford. And these days, very few consumers can afford what they want, so the market becomes irrational. We have to buy, and thus encourage production of, what we don't want... because it's all we can afford.

The problem here is synthetics are generally considerably less resource intense than natural fibers, I looked into cotton vs polyester a couple of years ago https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2016/7/19/environme...

While the synthetics and artificial fibers are bad as they pollute the environment downstream, cotton production requires roughly 20,000 liters to produce 1kg of fiber while polyester requires SEVENTEEN liters of water.

> Vote to pass legislation that taxes synthetics

Just regulate the items you don't want with rules. If you want it gradual, make the rules gradual. No need to build more money-collecting bureaucracy and keep asking people to pretend the gatekeepers/spenders are trustworthy.

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