That was exactly how I reacted when I learned about polyester.

I found out that popular synthetics used in fast-fashion resemble plastics because they are made out of fossil fuels, like petroleum (which is, as you may already know, a non-renewable source of energy). These are namely polyester, nylon and acrylic. 

When we put these ‘plastic’ clothes in the washing machine, plastic fibres shed and form microplastics, which get released into the environment. Also, if we were to throw our synthetic clothes away, they would take a very long time to decompose. (source, source)

 

How bad could it be?

From my recent survey on “Fashion and Young People”, almost 60% of the 30 respondents said they made the type of material a part of their decision-making process when clothes shopping. This is a good start, but we can only make the right choices if we know which materials are safe to use.

 

 

But which materials are a ‘yes’  to most people? Cotton comes in first place, followed by denim, and then the synthetics, at 76.7%. So, synthetics are really popular. 

 

More than half of them own over 10 pieces of synthetic clothing- that’s a lot of plastic floating around in our laundry rinse! I wonder if these microplastics get cycled back to our drinking water…

 

To no surprise, almost all owned school-based t-shirts. 

 

Of these, 71.5% roughly owned more than 7-9 school-based t-shirts. Is this a bit too much?

 

And almost 80% of them said most of their school-based t-shirts included those made of dri-fit material, which is synthetic.

 

Imagine combining the microplastics shed from washing the synthetic clothing of all students in Singapore…

Sounds like another major plastic pollution problem-only we can’t really see it. This makes it quite insidious.

 

We need to explore alternatives that have a lesser impact on our environment.

Examples include hemp, cotton and organic cotton. Both forms of cotton are thirsty crops, though. Non-organic cotton is notorious for degrading water quality (source) due to pollution from chemical pesticides and fertilizers used to grow cotton crops. Hemp, however, uses much less water (source)

This becomes challenging, because alternative textiles, such as hemp are not yet as common, affordable or easy-to-find as cotton and synthetics.  

Maybe we should try using recycled textiles to make school-based t-shirts. Considering the importance of school-based t-shirts in maintaining a sense of shared identity, and as memorabilia, we should not remove school-based t-shirts altogether, but find a better way to source them.

Do you have any ideas?  🙂 

 

Till next time!

Evelyn