Comment by PKop | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PKop | Hacker News Reader

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A huge source of micro-plastics [0][1]. My wife and I have attempted to cut out as many plastic sources in our household we have to come into contact with, including switching away from polyester clothing to cotton, linen and wool where possible.

From article: "A polyester textile is the same PET material (polyethylene terephthalate) as a plastic soda bottle, only extruded into a filament rather than molded into a container. Like the bottle, the fiber repels water. It’s hydrophobic. That’s a nice quality in a fleece jacket but a sweat-trapping horror against the skin. To reach its performance potential, polyester needed not simply to keep out moisture but to move it.

‘The body is really fussy. It doesn’t like hot, humid conditions right at skin level. Move that humidity a millimeter away and it’s a whole different ballgame’, explains Randy Harward, who spent more than 40 years developing products and materials in the outdoor apparel industry. Once off the skin, moisture becomes a valuable buffer against wind and chill. In hot weather, it can evaporate and keep you cool. The trick is getting it to that sweet spot."

Yea, no thanks. For weightlifting and running, switching to 100% cotton shorts from Bonobos and Chubbies feels much better, lighter weight, cooler, and less sweaty and harsh on my skin than polyester synthetic material. In addition to the concern I have for potential endocrine disrupting properties of plastics, there's already so many plastics we are exposed to on a daily basis I'd rather not have them directly against my body and skin throughout the day.

[0] https://www.technologynetworks.com/immunology/news/microplas...

[1] https://www.naturalclothing.com/what-is-polyester-fabric/

>> For many people. . .the polymer is the worst form of planetary pollution since oil spills. Some of that attitude is cultural snobbery, a marker of class allegiance not that different from Ralph Lauren eschewing synthetics in the early ’80s.

There it is! HN cant help itself. I love that one of the citations is literally “naturalclothing.com” that seems like a very neutral source.

> Yeah, no thanks.

I mean you are entitled to the subjective opinion about how comfortable cotton is to work out in, but the objective reality of the mass market is that polyester is hugely popular as a technical fabric. I go backpacking and cotton essential doesn’t exist in the back country, everyone is either sporting wool or synthetics. Wet cotton is cold, rough and doesn’t breathe. I love high performance natural fibers, and own a lot of wool and down, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that polyester has advantages over wool (less so down).

Is there any evidence that plastic can enter our body transdermally? I find it extremely unlikely and honestly quite far-fetched given everything I know about the skin.

It doesn't have to enter transdermally...we just breathe it in! The stuff sheds microplastics just in normal wear...

https://www.inputmag.com/style/microfibers-clothes-fashion-p...

Wow, went down that rabbit hole, and what awful reporting, spammed all over the place without real attribution. It wasn't even published/reviewed, it's BioRXiv with heavy promotion.

However, I did find a paper with something other than breathless commentary on microplastics. Interestingly, it's mostly unwoven PE/PS fabrics that generate microplastics, except in the case of nylon which decays in UV. Also many allergies due to synthetic contact are due to coatings (for wear and flammability) not the materials themselves.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972...

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.25.428144v3

Endocrine disruption (potential) of plastics in constant contact with skin is something I sometimes worry about, more for my kids than myself, but I'd like to ask anybody more knowledgeable if it really makes a difference: aren't cotton and polyester both dyed with synthetic dyes/paints, and that's ultimately what's in contact with our bodies? If this is a source of endocrine disruption, won't cotton affect me just the same? Wouldn't I have to wear undyed, natural color cotton to make a difference?

Just because something is "synthetic" doesn't mean it's toxic. Plastics, or rather the additives used to make plastics soft, flexible, water-repellent, etc., are now known to have a specific set of toxic (or endocrine disrupting) effects on biological systems. Other synthetic substances may have none, or different ones. Textile dyes don't contain any endocrine disrupters as far as I know, but they certainly might have other ingredients that aren't very good for you. Also, some bioactive substances may be easily absorbed by the body, others not. There's a lot about all this that we just don't know.

Personally I'm not very worried about absorbing endocrine disrupters through the skin from clothes, but I avoid polyester clothes because a) I don't like the way they feel on my skin, and b) because of the environmental effects (washing them creates micro-plastic pollution, and eventually they become plastic trash).

But it should be pointed out that cotton is also an environmental villain... in cotton agriculture huge amounts of herbicides and pesticides are used, even more than for most other crops. And even if the dyes don't have any significant effect on the health of the wearer, the process of dying textiles produces lots of environmental toxins and probably isn't good for the health of the people working in that industry.

So in relation to the environment and polyester vs cotton you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. The one thing you can do is consume less... keep clothes longer, mend them whenever at all possible, or just go full naturist! ;-)

You could buy clothes that are naturally dyed which would eliminate the toxins.

Are you just assuming natural dyes are not toxic?

I wouldn't make that assumption. The Ames Test returns positive results on many natural products.

Unless the clothing is green, in which case you may get arsenic poisoning.

> including switching away from polyester clothing to cotton, linen and wool where possible.

I’ve been going through the same thing lately. My daughter had offered to show me how to naturally dye and sew my own clothes if I get the undyed fabric. I’m eager to take her up on that.

I have a nano-spun PET hardshell. It is so breathable that I can honestly say that I find it to be more breathable than the cotton t-shirt I wear underneath, while also being waterproof.

PET can be made to be much more breathable than common natural fabrics.

Speaking of polyester for athletics, I have not found that they’ve eliminated the problem of the shirt trapping odor. I have some golf and workout shirts that are absurdly comfortable but smell when they come clean from the laundry. I don’t perspire that much but the odor seems to get worse the longer I own the shirt.

Same. Soak in baking soda and water overnight then wash again. Gets rid of the build up. Repeat when you notice the smell again. I know the smell you mean, it’s like ghost BO. It is to BO as la croix is to soda.

What about rayon?

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