Recycling Plastic into Textiles
Is this really #sustainablefashion?
By Elsa Johnson
Image 1: Jean Campbell Models Zara's Sustainable Outerwear #sustainablefashion Zara spotlights sustainable fashion with its second Join Life x TRF collection
Recycling plastics into textiles: the most buzz-worthy sustainable textile and process around. Fashion brands in the past few years have been releasing collections featuring recycled polyester.
Sustainable fashion has increased in popularity, with the hashtag with “#sustainablefashion” growing five times in the past year, and “#secondhandfashion” being one of the most mentioned hashtags according to the Sustainability Fashion Report by data company, Heuritech. As the sustainable movement has grown, there has been an increase in brands looking to be more mindful and eco-conscious. As polyester is the most widely used textile in the world (making up 55% of the global textile market in 2016), some brands have turned to recycling plastics to create a more sustainable version of the fabric. It’s stretchy, light and inexpensives—perfect to make leggings out of. And who doesn’t want to feel like they care for the environment, while they also take time for self care?
But is recycled plastic into polyester really good for the environment? Let’s take a deep dive into polyester and try to see if we can get to the bottom of it.
What is Recycled Polyester?
Let’s talk about the basics. Polyester is derived from crude oil and polyethylene terephthalate, or PET. PET is made of long chain polymers and can be broken down, recycled, and re-spun into synthetic fabrics. During “polymerization”, ethylene is mixed with dimethyl terephthalate and terephthalic acid and the outcome is liquid PET, which is extruded into fine ribbons. These ribbons of plastic are cooled and then cut up into little chips and melted, that liquid is drawn and stretched to create a fiber that’s more flexible and stronger than rigid plastic, polyester.
Because polyester is made of PET, outside of lab conditions, it does not biodegrade, but it does decompose by slowly breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces, becoming microplastics. Microplastics, or microfibers (when broken off of synthetic fabrics) have polluted our water and food chain, affecting our ecosystems. As Rachel Sarnoff, Sustainable Strategist, former Executive Director of 5 Gyres Institute and a Business of Fashion VOICES speaker in 2018, put it, “Plastic doesn’t go away, plastic just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. What we are really doing is sending that plastic from our clothes and putting it into our food chain.”
“Plastic doesn’t go away, plastic just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. What we are really doing is sending that plastic from our clothes and putting it into our food chain.”
While recycling plastics into textiles may seem like a mindful option, is it sustainable? Is the process of recycling plastics into textiles an eco-friendly option, or should we reuse and up-cycle our plastics into a more resilient building material? How much microfibers do shed and is the end product of quality material?
The Good, the Bad, and Everything in Between about Recycled Polyester Textiles
While upcycling, using, and reducing our plastic waste is a fantastic reason to use recycled plastics, it can take nine clear plastic water bottles to make one T-shirt for Toad&Co, 25 plastic bottles to make one pair of Girlfriend Collective leggings, and 12 bottles for Ralph Lauren’s Earth Polo. For textiles, hard plastic containing PET, can be recycled like plastic bottles, and has been one of the selling points by brands like Everlane, Ralph Lauren, Athleta, Patagonia, AMUR, Toad&Co and any label that uses recycled polyester.
Image 2 : “How is Polyester Made?” by Fashion Revolution
Essentially, there are two main ways to recycle plastics. PET can be chemically broken down to its base polymers in an extensive process that can create a stronger fabric that can be recycled again. Plastics can also be mechanically broken down, which is the process commonly used to recycle plastics at scale, by processing and melting the plastics before spinning them into a new fabric. This process is a lot less energy intensive than creating virgin textiles. According to a 2017 Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, mechanical recycling has the potential to produce 59% less energy compared to virgin polyester and can reduce our dependence on crude oil to create plastics and polyester. We love hearing that against instinct that recycling plastic might be high energy, it is in fact a low energy option. But does this breakdown affect the quality of fabric?
From a design point of view there isn’t much difference between recycled and virgin polyester. When asked about the difference using the textiles for practical purposes, Tara St. James, founder and sustainable advisor from Study NY and Re:Source Library, said she didn’t notice a difference: “[W]hen comparing apples to apples (textiles with the same structure and finish), there is no difference between the virgin and recycled fabrics.”
While mechanically recycling plastics reduces waste and takes a lower amount of energy, it produces a less quality fabric. Mechanical recycling degrades the quality of the material, as the original polymer chain has been broken, and now can only be downcycled. In a study in Fibers and Polymers done 2014, recycled polyester breakage point is almost half of virgin polyester. Co-Founder of textile recycler Helpsy, and Circular and Textile Waste Consultant Rachel Kibbe added, “...you wind up with a product that's inferior in strength and most likely can't, or won't, be recycled again. It's fate is generally downcycling (shredded for carpet padding, upholstery filler etc), or landfill.”
In a quick snapshot there looks to be a balanced interpretation between virgin and recycled polyester. Recycled polyester is an effective solution to recycle and reuse PET plastic that would otherwise not biodegrade, it requires less energy to produce and there is a lot of PET to use to recycle. From a design perspective, there isn’t much difference between the two textiles. Yet from a more technical view, recycled polyester breaks faster than virgin polyester, meaning it can only be down-cycled as a textile. What does this breaking mean for environmental issues like micro-plastics and microfibers?
Image 3: Everlane’s 2018 campaign for ReNew, introducing its new line of clothing made of recycled water bottles
While recycling plastics into textiles may seem like an obvious, positive option for sustainability, despite giving plastics a second life, there are further issues that should be considered when discussing recycled polyester.
As PET is one long polymer strand, creating a recycled textile means breaking this thread multiple times, how strong can this fiber be? We mentioned microfibers earlier, and it has been shown that as this is an already broken strand of PET, recycled polyester decomposes and breaks into microplastics and microfibers easier and faster than virgin fabrics.
Recently, polyester has been linked to the release of microfibers and microplastics in our waterways and food chain. Microfibers are plastic nanofibers that break off from clothing through wear and tear, especially in the washing machine. More than half a million metric tons of microfibers enter the ocean because of the washing of synthetic textiles. These plastics are in our water, in our air and in our food, according to a WWF analysis, we ingest one credit card of plastic a week through our food and water. Using recycled polyester releases these microfibers faster and using polyester at all still contributes to this problem.
Microfibers are a major point to stress because unless producers stop designing with recycled polyester, and consumers stop buying and really take care of polyester goods, these microplastics will continue to invade our climate. Recycling plastics into a textile became more mainstream as brands have jumped on this material as a sustainable saviour a few years ago, even though it has only recently been branded to consumers as sustainable fashion. However, fashion production has a longer timeline than what is marketed to the public. “The idea of recycling a plastic bottle into a shirt became very popular maybe eight years ago, before we understood that when we wash these clothes that they were shedding microfibers,” stated Sarnoff. So the solution and long term effects of microfibers is only now being realised as Kibbe’s says, “the microplastics shed from plastic materials during use and washing are a problem we have not really reckoned with.”
The Reality
Image 4: Stella McCartney
The reality of recycling plastics, PET into polyester is not clear cut in whether it’s good or bad, but as previously asked,is it sustainable? Not really, but there isn’t a clear sustainable solution for the flexibility and versatility of polyester in fashion, yet.
The process has low carbon emissions and recycled polyester is an opportunity to reduce and reuse our plastic waste and fossil fuels. However, it can create a lower quality product and in the long run polyester contributes to microfibers in our water. Even eco fashion icon Patagonia struggles with what to do with polyester and recycled polyester.
As the debate of whether or not recycled polyester is inherently good or bad, or whether this is progress or greenwashing, buying too much of one thing is never a sustainable option. Tara St. James notes, “What's really important is that brands do their due diligence to know the origin of those materials and be transparent with their customers about their processes,” and Rachel Sarnoff added, “the best thing that brands can do to become more eco-friendly is not sell products that people are going to throw away.”
Tara St. James also mentioned the importance of using and purchasing recycled polyester in the most impactful way possible, “to put it simply I recommend using recycled poly for outerwear rather than yoga wear.” Even as consumers we should do our part in purchasing responsibly. Rachel Kibbe commented, “We should all just be wearing used clothing and hemp based fabrics, but I'm not perfect either. In terms of technical and activewear that lasts and makes sense, virgin and recycled plastic textiles still make the most sense.”
There are steps the industry is taking to mitigate the effects of microfibers. Solutions that have become popular through technical innovation, like coating fibers with silk proteins, or natural rubber to give it stretch like polyester or washing machines that can catch and filter microfibers. Yet, with no fast solution on the rise, the best thing consumers can do is educate themselves on the long term effects of recycled polyester, and look for options that are made from natural fibers, not plastics, or items that don’t need to be washed as regularly to reduce wear and tear, and the shedding of microfibers, like shoes or suitcases.
If you have made it this far, there is hope with the easy to follow blueprint Sarnoff gave us, “In order to get better there are three things that need to happen in fashion. One is we need to stop making clothes that people are throwing away. Two, we need to really think about how we are manufacturing. Three, we need to move towards washing machines that have these filters in place.”
Though there are solutions to slowing the microfiber problem we can think so much bigger than plastic bottles being turned into recycled polyester, are we restricting ourselves if a bottle can make a T-shirt we should keep using plastic? Though recycled polyester uses PET waste, in the long run it still releases plastics as microfibers into our environment. What about turning those bottles into housing that doesn’t degrade, or developing regenerative natural fibers for our clothing? We have only scratched the surface of what is possible for innovative sustainable materials, we need to look past plastic.
Photos Courtesy of Sources Listed Above