4 ms·

I have recently started refusing to buy all of this plastic filled clothes. If I see any % of it I don't buy it. Period. I spend much more upfront for clothes,

I have recently started refusing to buy all of this plastic filled clothes. If I see any % of it I don't buy it. Period. I spend much more upfront for clothes, but I gain a lot long term. Clothes don't look terrible after few washings and they tend to last forever.

adrianN 10mo ago
I once bought 100% hemp pants because I heard that material is tougher than cotton, but my bicycle seat killed the pants in just a few weeks. Modern jeans last a few months to a year. I have yet to find pants that endure a bicycle commute.
- dghlsakjg 10mo ago
  Look for pants with a "gusseted crotch". There are also bicycle specific commuting pants that have this feature.
- lesostep 10mo ago
  Hemp fibers are tougher then cotton Ironically, that's why hemp is comonnly used to make thinner more airy and less heavy fabrics. So the final products aren't always more resistant to wear and tear just because fibers are
- MrBeanDean 10mo ago
  Had my Nudie jeans for about 5 year wearing them probably 4 days a week averaged over the whole time. Indeed the frequent cycling killed them, but it took quite a while. Now I'm figuring out when to bring them to their free repair service to see if I can get a prolonged live for them. Disclaimer: cycled probably only 15 minutes a day with them averaged over the whole time, but really hard to say, so your millage might vary
jjice 10mo ago
Why? Polyester (as one plastic based fiber) gets a lot of flack because low quality clothes tend to use it, but polyester can be a fantastic fabric if done right. Durable, fast drying, and can be completely recycled. For example, Patagonia tends to have high quality polyesters and has since the 70s. My experience with their fleece is that I can abuse it and it'll come out unaffected on the other end. Pilling now and then that I take down with a pill remover. Nylon is also a fantastic material, when used appropriately, like for the shell of a jacket. And don't get me wrong, cotton, wool, and hemp are all fantastic as well. Most of my clothing is those fabrics and they do a damn fine job at what they're good at.
- soulofmischief 10mo ago
  One problem with polyester is the amount of microplastics which enter the water supply when washing them. It's an unacceptable amount.
  - cyberax 10mo ago
    Polyester is biodegradable, albeit slowly.
    - soulofmischief 10mo ago
      Citation needed.
      - sitharus 10mo ago
        Degradation Rates of Plastics in the Environment (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b06635 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b06635) shows PET degrading very slowly in the environment. _Very_ slowly. Researchers have found bacteria that do degrade PET using esterases though: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aad6359 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aad6359 and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020320997 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202... So I guess technically it's biodegradable? Though as it's an energy source give bacteria a few hundred years or so.
      - cyberax 10mo ago
        "Polyesters" is a huge category. PET in plastic bottles is also a polyester, and it can persist for hundreds of years because it's typically in a highly crystalline form that resists fragmentation. I was talking about polyester fibers. They have multiple orders of magnitude higher surface-area-to-weight ratio. There are very few good studies of the degradation rate, and they typically focus on bulk products rather than particulates. So we have to rely on indirect evidence, the concentration of nanoplastics near polluted locations typically stays steady rather than keeps increasing. It means that it's in a dynamic equilibrium. Another data point is lignin. It's a bilogical polymer, but that is not biodegradable in bulk, unless you are a fungus. And fungi don't have some neat enzymes that can degrade it, they just blast it with peroxides. And yes, there are lignin nanoparticles and you can detect them in water. These nanoparticles also don't accumulate and they can be degraded by bacteria because of their high surface area. Even though bacteria can NOT degrade bulk lignin.
sva_ 10mo ago
Pro tip: if your clothes say 100% merino wool or whatever, this is only about the fiber, and they may still be covered in plastic from the "superwash" process (for example, almost all merino wool is)
- copperx 10mo ago
  Oh, so that's why my fancy 100% Merino wool sweaters don't stink like wet dog when wet, like regular vintage wool sweaters? I know there had to something different in the manufacturing process.
- Melatonic 10mo ago
  Link to more details ?
  - gamzer 10mo ago
    Search for Superwash, Hercosett 125 and machine-washable wool. Also mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wool#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wool#History
- miladyincontrol 10mo ago
  Yeah. Also while not a conclusive test, any wool that even suggests it could go in the washer is absolutely heavily super wash processed.
cyberax 10mo ago
I tried that but quickly found out that a bit of polyester makes clothes MUCH more durable. It doesn't matter for bath robes, but underwear or socks with just 5% of polyester last almost 10x longer.
gibspaulding 10mo ago
I’ve been going the same direction lately. We have enough plastic in our environment, the last thing I need is to be wearing it. It’s probably a bit paranoid just from a health perspective, but I’ve found that I genuinely prefer the feel/look of natural fibers.

adrianN 10mo ago

I once bought 100% hemp pants because I heard that material is tougher than cotton, but my bicycle seat killed the pants in just a few weeks. Modern jeans last a few months to a year. I have yet to find pants that endure a bicycle commute.

dghlsakjg 10mo ago
Look for pants with a "gusseted crotch". There are also bicycle specific commuting pants that have this feature.
lesostep 10mo ago
Hemp fibers are tougher then cotton Ironically, that's why hemp is comonnly used to make thinner more airy and less heavy fabrics. So the final products aren't always more resistant to wear and tear just because fibers are
MrBeanDean 10mo ago
Had my Nudie jeans for about 5 year wearing them probably 4 days a week averaged over the whole time. Indeed the frequent cycling killed them, but it took quite a while. Now I'm figuring out when to bring them to their free repair service to see if I can get a prolonged live for them. Disclaimer: cycled probably only 15 minutes a day with them averaged over the whole time, but really hard to say, so your millage might vary

jjice 10mo ago

Why? Polyester (as one plastic based fiber) gets a lot of flack because low quality clothes tend to use it, but polyester can be a fantastic fabric if done right. Durable, fast drying, and can be completely recycled. For example, Patagonia tends to have high quality polyesters and has since the 70s. My experience with their fleece is that I can abuse it and it'll come out unaffected on the other end. Pilling now and then that I take down with a pill remover. Nylon is also a fantastic material, when used appropriately, like for the shell of a jacket. And don't get me wrong, cotton, wool, and hemp are all fantastic as well. Most of my clothing is those fabrics and they do a damn fine job at what they're good at.

soulofmischief 10mo ago
One problem with polyester is the amount of microplastics which enter the water supply when washing them. It's an unacceptable amount.
- cyberax 10mo ago
  Polyester is biodegradable, albeit slowly.
  - soulofmischief 10mo ago
    Citation needed.
    - sitharus 10mo ago
      Degradation Rates of Plastics in the Environment (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b06635 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b06635) shows PET degrading very slowly in the environment. _Very_ slowly. Researchers have found bacteria that do degrade PET using esterases though: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aad6359 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aad6359 and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020320997 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202... So I guess technically it's biodegradable? Though as it's an energy source give bacteria a few hundred years or so.
    - cyberax 10mo ago
      "Polyesters" is a huge category. PET in plastic bottles is also a polyester, and it can persist for hundreds of years because it's typically in a highly crystalline form that resists fragmentation. I was talking about polyester fibers. They have multiple orders of magnitude higher surface-area-to-weight ratio. There are very few good studies of the degradation rate, and they typically focus on bulk products rather than particulates. So we have to rely on indirect evidence, the concentration of nanoplastics near polluted locations typically stays steady rather than keeps increasing. It means that it's in a dynamic equilibrium. Another data point is lignin. It's a bilogical polymer, but that is not biodegradable in bulk, unless you are a fungus. And fungi don't have some neat enzymes that can degrade it, they just blast it with peroxides. And yes, there are lignin nanoparticles and you can detect them in water. These nanoparticles also don't accumulate and they can be degraded by bacteria because of their high surface area. Even though bacteria can NOT degrade bulk lignin.

sva_ 10mo ago

Pro tip: if your clothes say 100% merino wool or whatever, this is only about the fiber, and they may still be covered in plastic from the "superwash" process (for example, almost all merino wool is)

copperx 10mo ago
Oh, so that's why my fancy 100% Merino wool sweaters don't stink like wet dog when wet, like regular vintage wool sweaters? I know there had to something different in the manufacturing process.
Melatonic 10mo ago
Link to more details ?
- gamzer 10mo ago
  Search for Superwash, Hercosett 125 and machine-washable wool. Also mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wool#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wool#History
miladyincontrol 10mo ago
Yeah. Also while not a conclusive test, any wool that even suggests it could go in the washer is absolutely heavily super wash processed.

cyberax 10mo ago

I tried that but quickly found out that a bit of polyester makes clothes MUCH more durable. It doesn't matter for bath robes, but underwear or socks with just 5% of polyester last almost 10x longer.

gibspaulding 10mo ago

I’ve been going the same direction lately. We have enough plastic in our environment, the last thing I need is to be wearing it. It’s probably a bit paranoid just from a health perspective, but I’ve found that I genuinely prefer the feel/look of natural fibers.