|
Saving the earth is a complex aim with so many different areas to prioritise. Synthetics may produce micro plastics, but then natural fibers like cotton require huge amounts of pesticides and water, viscose or bamboo requires a shit load of chemicals. Carbon footprints for almost all textiles are big. Recycled plastic is a low carbon, no pesticide, low impact material with one downside - micro plastics. Polyester is one of the few success stories around recycled plastic. It’s not like the alternative is to turn your old plastic bottle into a new plastic bottle, plastic recycling is almost always downcycling the material into a lower grade product. Like most things around conservation and the environment, it is complicated and there are loads of stakeholders - biodiversity, micro plastics, chemical accumulation, CO2 and greenhouse gases, deforestation, waste management, just to name a few. One thing we can be sure of is the best thing is to not buying new clothes. In fact this philosophy should be applied to every consumer good. Making things is extremely bad for the environment. Patagonia have been pretty consistent around this point, for example as far back as 2001 they had their “don’t buy this jacket” ad: https://blog.yorksj.ac.uk/jovanalleshi/patagonia-sustainabil... This is the elephant in the room that most consumer goods companies don’t want to talk about. They can make things out of bamboo or produce paper straws or have recyclable packaging, but fundamentally even environmentally friendly products have a huge environmental impact. Ultimately Patagonia’s mission statement is at odds with the reason it or any company exists. Saving the earth isn’t profitable. |
If it was just companies not wanting to talk about this, things would be fine. Problem is that neither policymakers, nor common citizens want to talk about this apart from a miniscule minority. This includes the overwhelming majority of those who claim to espouse eco-friendly values and to be willing to make lifestyle changes to stick to them. If you're not buying less new things, including e.g. doing a house renovation using new materials, you're almost certainly far less eco-friendly than the less wealthy who can't afford these things in the first place. One might try to placate their conscience by buying indulgences in the form of donations to climate causes but this doesn't really work.
Even what's commonly thought to be the biggest elephant in the room, "having kids is the worst thing you can do for the environment", is all but a sibling of the "making things is extremely bad" elephant, as the former is bad only because of the latter. If youre raising your kids in the woods living off the land like hunter-gatherers, or if you're raising them at the wealth level of the average Sierra Leonean child, having one isn't bad for the environment all.