What is the Textile Impact on Global Warming?

The textile impact on global warming is far from a helpful one. Today's society is extremely consumer based. This drives the clothing company's to produce more and more products by any means necessary.



It's what goes into making these items that has such a negative impact. If you ever try melting some polyester or polypropylene you'll see what I mean when you get a toxic smelling liquid goo. These ingredients are produced in large factories which heavily pollute the air around them. Once this clothing arrives in a 1st world country (most likely from a sweat shop in the east) it is washed over and over again then thrown out only to be replaced by the next trendy fashion.

The chemicals in these products lay to waste in landfills and water bodies only creating more added pollution.

However the most damage is done before you purchase the item:

1. The bleaching and processing of wool products emits hundreds of liters of methane gas into the atmosphere everyday.

2. When cotton and other natural materials are harvested the fields are sprayed with chemicals and heavy farm equipment is used emitting additional CO2 into the atmosphere. 3. The processing of fibers used in the clothing takes massive amounts of energy to create the finished product.

4. These products are packaged in layers of plastic which is not only not bio-degradable but the production of plastic itself also creates excess amounts of greenhouse gases.

5. Finally in order to get the product from the factory to the store involves transportation via plane, ship and vehicle.

In order to prevent this we suggest purchasing organic clothing (which also lasts longer) as your old clothes begin to wear out. However we fear this issue may be overlooked by the public for possibly years to come. If so there is no reason why you can't wash your clothes a little less, air dry and not swear by always purchasing the latest fashions every month.

If you can do some of this then the awareness will slowly rise and the textile impact on global warming can be slowly reduced.

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