Wearing natural fibers while supporting farm economy
We all know that we can support local farmers by purchasing the food they produce. Farmers’ Markets have fresh produce like bell peppers, tomatoes, and other garden goodies.
We can buy dry beans from a local farmer (fresh dry beans have the most incredible flavor!!). We can buy milk from our local dairy- the Cass Clay brand comes from Fargo, ND.
But did you know that what we wear can also impact farmers?
Material to make clothing has a wide variety of sources.
One such source is cotton. America has many cotton farmers; in fact, 11.1 million acres of cotton was planted last year in our country. The USDA’s Planted Acres report as of June 30, 2023, concluded that there was a net decrease of cotton acres planted, by 19%.
Everybody loves cotton clothes! Cotton undergarments, cotton t-shirts, denim jeans. And as clothes get worn out or even just out of style, more clothes are bought.
How, then, can cotton production in the US be decreasing?
Like that, wool or cashmere, silk, and hemp are all crops that get planted or harvested in the US. Wool is harvested from sheep as they’re sheared each year- sheep are not killed in the harvesting of wool.
But about two-thirds of clothing articles being made were created from synthetic fabrics in 2021, according to The Plastic Soup Foundation’s 2022 publication (Fashion, Fibers, and Human Health).
And they predict a rise in the number of synthetics used to 75% of the total world’s clothing by 2030.
Synthetic fibers found their origin in nylon. A widely accepted version is that DuPont, a chemical company, created nylon from petrochemicals (substances obtained from processing petroleum or natural gas). Synthetic fibers gained traction thanks to their wrinkle, insect, and stain resistances, as well as waterproof qualities.
That’s why cotton is decreasing. Clothes are being made from plastic instead.
Why not jump on the synthetic bandwagon, and be resistant to more pesky problems like wrinkled clothes?
Because microplastics are increasingly coming to the world’s attention; as indisputably negatively affecting human health- and most likely, the health of all the world’s creatures as well.
It sounds dramatic, but in a 2022 study published in Science Direct journal, four polymers were discovered in test subjects’ blood for the first time- and those
weren’t the only types of plastic found there.
Three of those four polymers are used in synthetic clothing, and the fourth is used in dental applications.
Dr. Philip Kuriakose (a hematologist and medical oncologist) from the Henry Ford Cancer Institute put it very succinctly in his statement to the Henry Ford Health site: “The question isn’t how are they getting into our bloodstream,” he says. “The question is how could they not?”
He goes on to remind readers of all the places that microplastics have been found already: The top of Mount Everest. The ocean floor. Inside our lungs. Ice caps and fetal placentas.
A real problem with using plastic in clothing is our modern way of washing and drying them. Washers were thought to be the biggest culprit in microplastics emissions, but a 2020 study done by Kenneth Leung (an ocean pollution researcher at Hong Kong University) and his team showed that dryers emit over 40 times more microfibers than washers. Washers spit those microfibers into the gray water, which can diffuse into water sources. But dryers cough them directly into the air: A single dryer can emit more than 120 million microfibers in a year.
And the worst offender, Leung’s study found, was polyester clothing. The polyester microfibers don’t clump together to make lint, like cotton microfibers do- and since they’re tiny shreds of light material that slip by each other rather than clumping, polyester microfibers flit easily into the air, settling down on everything from our own heads to the water sitting in the Prairie Potholes to the top of Mount Everest.
For babies, especially, since they spend so much of their time with their hands on or near their mouths, what is on their bodies is almost as important as what their food is served in. The Henry Ford Institute suggests that natural fibers are the best thing to put on your babies for that reason.
The other issue with clothing made of synthetic fibers? The quality of the clothes decreases very quickly. Ever had a soft, comfortable shirt or flowy dress become rather itchy and ouchy?
The label will reveal the root of the problem: those clothes are made of plastic, and as it’s washed and dried and worn, the plastic-y materials poke out.
Natural fibers don’t do that. They wear much better as they age, and actually, are much more comfortable while also being much better for your skin.
So why do we even use synthetic, plastic-based fabrics to make clothes?
It’s cheaper.
But weighing in on that shirt that’s $2 cheaper is a tenfold increase in time to degrade under a landfill (or possibly never, depending on the synthetic material), and all the disadvantages. Synthetics irritate skin with alarming frequency, and are so unnatural that they’re found in our blood and tissues in the body.
Coincidentally, we’re facing a pretty scary percentage of people with chronic conditions. The CDC’s latest data is from 2008, and it states that in adults over 55 years old, 78% of them have at least one chronic condition. Alarming, isn’t it?
Walking through the clothing sections of any major big-box store will yield nearly identical hauls of clothing made entirely or mostly of synthetic fibers.
To make up for the lack of selection, a short list of businesses that capitalize on naturally fibered clothing, most or all of whom are based in the USA follows: Wuruwool Duckworth Harvest & Mill Earth Creations Royal Apparel Spiritex
Blue Canoe Vermont Flannel Organic Cotton Plus Solid State Clothing Ramblers Way Johnson Woolen Mills
Mountain Meadow Wool
Weather Wool Mountain Merino Dehen 1920
Ibex
And many more! The internet is a wonderful tool in this case, to find clothing produced with natural fibers. There are countless businesses and countless options to choose from; you don’t have to sacrifice style. And of course, local-tothe-US is best.
Better for your skin, your lungs, your kids’ health, the environment, US farmers…synthetic fibers don’t have any advantages!
Take a gander at the labels of your clothing: What they’re made of just might surprise you.