Mindful material selection

Photo by Rebecca Hall

Hello! We hope you are well and have been enjoying A Thoughtful Thread so far! Have you had the chance to check out our recent interviews with Belinda Evans of Alchemy, Cass Harris and Megan Harris of String Harvest, and Natasha Knight of One Fable? We've certainly valued hearing the perspectives of these artists, designers and business owners on sustainability - their approaches, advice and encouragement - and we hope you have too.

This week we're back on the keyboard to highlight and explore some of the main sustainability issues associated with our weaving and fibre worlds. We hope this post will help to draw attention to the key issues, and illustrate how mindful material selection and practices can support positive environmental, social and economic outcomes. 

Key Issues

As you may well be aware, there is a ridiculous amount of information about sustainability in textiles and fibre production, which you’ll discover from a quick Google! We’ve summarised the main areas to consider below, which might help direct your future research. We've also recently discovered an informative series of fabric profile posts on merino wool, cotton, and rayon by Sustainability in Style, which we'd recommend as a great place to start.

Photo: Claire Lock

Fibre sources - Natural fibres (such as cotton, linen, and wool) are renewable, meaning that the stocks will be replenished pretty quickly. These fibres are typically biodegradable, so they will decompose when discarded. Synthetic fibres, such as polyester, nylon and acrylic, are made from petroleum, which takes hundreds (if not thousands) of years to form. Synthetic fibres typically take a really, really long time to decompose.

Production and Processing - Turning materials into usable fibres can require a lot of chemicals and/or energy. Synthetic fibres and some fibres made from natural materials (such as rayon and viscose) require both chemical (sometimes quite toxic) and mechanical processing to turn the materials into usable fibres. Natural fibres require cleaning before they can be processed, and this can be done using harsh chemicals (such as used for most commercial wool processing) or gentle detergents. Note that making ‘superwash’ wool involves lots of harsh chemicals and essentially plasticates the wool (thanks to Kylie Gusset and the Woolful podcast for that info!). Other processing stages, such as mercerising, bleaching and dyeing (see below), also require chemicals.

It's important to note that some aspects of natural fibre production of cotton and wool can be environmentally unfriendly. Cotton requires large amounts of water to grow, so is ideally grown in wetter areas (rather than in the driest continent on earth!), and huge amounts of pesticides are often used for cotton growing. Most wool producers use pesticides on their sheep and fertiliser on their feed areas, and mulesing is typically practiced on merino sheep in Australia. Interestingly, it’s really difficult to find organic, unmulesed merino wool in Australia – since organic production means that they don’t use pesticides, many of the animals need to be mulesed to avoid fly strike. Many organic producers will do the mulesing as humanely as possible, though, including use of pain relief and only taking off as much as is necessary.  Unmulesed merino is available if you look for it - some producers, such as White Gum Wool, are able to raise their merino sheep without mulesing by using special grazing techniques... so it's always worth doing a bit of research. 

Dyes – dyes can be natural or synthetic. Both types often require activators or fixatives; these chemicals, and the dyes themselves, can be toxic or irritating, and both types of dyeing can use significant amounts of water. Alternatively, natural fibres like wool and cotton can come in a range of naturally-occurring colours.

Labour conditions – many textile/fibre producers grow and manufacture products overseas, where labour is cheaper and worker standards are lower than Australia or nonexistent. Sweat shops and child exploitation are a big issue in the textile industry, particularly in areas such as the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. If you’re buying products made in these areas, finding fair trade products can help alleviate any concerns in this area. 

Transportation – transport of materials around the world generates huge amounts of pollution, and buying locally-produced goods is an ideal way to minimise that pollution. If you’re desperate to buy something from the other side of the world, you can always purchase carbon offsets, support pollution-mitigating activities, or even buddy up with a fibre friend to place an order together.

Photo by Rebecca Hall

What else can we do?

We talked about some easy ways to reduce the adverse effects of your yarn / fibre addition in an earlier post, but, to recap, the main ideas are:

- Use what you have! Before you go buying more fibre goodness, check your stash to see whether you already have suitable materials.

- Have a huge stash but nothing to use? Organise a fibre swap with some buddies, join the @fibreshare guys on their next swap program, or bundle up some yarn packs to sell (like @little_loom and @adaolivecreations). 

- Buy used/recycled/reclaimed materials - using older or preloved materials is much more environmentally friendly than purchasing new stuff. 

- If you really need (or want) to buy new stuff, do some research first - ask your supplier questions about where and how your fibres were produced. The more information you have, the better you are able to make an informed decision. For further information on environmental impacts of textiles and eco-friendly approaches, check out this site and this one. 

As always, we welcome your input on the issues identified, and information about any solutions or strategies that you apply, as well as any great resources you'd like to share! In the next post, we will follow up with an overview of our favourite sustainable fibre suppliers from Australia and around the globe.

Take care,

Holly and Claire