When talking to people, I struck me that the meaning of sustainability varies from person to person and brand to brand. This was evident from the different textile and product combinations, as well as what each company and person sees as the ideal sustainability goal. Several brands focused on recycling and upcycling waste from textiles and by-products from other companies by processing the wasted material and combining it with new materials, one example being synthetic fabric made from plastic bottles. In this way, materials, which otherwise would have been wasted resources, are redirected into the loop of production and thereby, value is maintained or even generated¹,².
The paradox is that synthetic textiles like polyester can be characterized as more or less sustainable, depending on how they are made and used. Recycling plastics to make yarn and fabric leads to a significant reduction in use of water, energy and chemicals, compared to making these materials from raw materials. In this way, textiles based on recycled plastics have much less of a negative environmental impact³. Nonetheless, using recycled plastics in clothing is also associated with problems. For example, when washed, polyester gives free microfibers⁴. Polyester is not biodegradable and it has turned out to be a major pollutant in oceans, rivers, and lakes⁵,⁶. Moreover, PET bottles alongside many plastics used for food packaging contain BPA, which has been linked to reproductive disorder, heart disease, cancer, asthma and fetal brain development and asthma⁷.
