So… Cotton/Linen/Wool? The technology is fine, its only downside in most applications is simply cost. Cotton clothes are more comfortable, less stinky, less polluting, and won’t fuse with your skin and disfigure you for life if they accidentally catch on fire. On top of not making microplastics soup every wash cycle.
If we cared to actually solve the problem of plastics in fast fashion we could ban them, with some exceptions for sportswear and shoes where synthetics have some actually useful uses. Hell, we could even make it an easy transition by gradually pulling back the allowable synthetic content for x years.
But it would directly kneecap Shein and H&M’s business model so we have to weigh all the pros against that.
I’m sure would find equivalent non-polluting alternative materials within a couple of years if we banned all plastics (“synthetic textiles”).
But only if we actually put the ban in place.
Otherwise the answer is never.
So… Cotton/Linen/Wool? The technology is fine, its only downside in most applications is simply cost. Cotton clothes are more comfortable, less stinky, less polluting, and won’t fuse with your skin and disfigure you for life if they accidentally catch on fire. On top of not making microplastics soup every wash cycle.
If we cared to actually solve the problem of plastics in fast fashion we could ban them, with some exceptions for sportswear and shoes where synthetics have some actually useful uses. Hell, we could even make it an easy transition by gradually pulling back the allowable synthetic content for x years.
But it would directly kneecap Shein and H&M’s business model so we have to weigh all the pros against that.
I’m sure would find equivalent non-polluting alternative materials within a couple of years if we banned all plastics (“synthetic textiles”).
But only if we actually put the ban in place.
Otherwise the answer is never.