I didn't Cotton On
So I order some clothes for my kids... online, as you do. A little cotton cardigan, some tracksuit pants, a t shirt, and a hoodie. Some nice cosy things for the cooler Autumn months. They arrive. The cardi is 100% acrylic! What the hell is acrylic? It's that stuff ladies' fake nails are made of. It's that stuff your bath is probably made of, I'm seeing it more and more on clothing labels ... basically, it's plastic. It was invented in 1941, so I'd hazard a guess and say it was invented due to the inability to harvest wool or cotton so easily in the war? Maybe? More research needed!
The name of the shop I bought the clothes from is Cotton On, so I thought... you know, they'd be 100% cotton (not that that's not probelmatic either, but more on that in another post). OK, caveat emptor, I didn't read the label! Terrible oversight, and I will be reading future clothing labels with my magnifying glass... and my specs. But here's the rub, well another rub... You can't read the label. I checked out the site, and there's nothing indicating what the clothes are made from.
The hoodie and trackies are 65% polyester, and only 35% cotton. This stuff used to all be cotton. Nice, soft, natural cotton. Is it because cotton is becoming more expensive? I guess so. More research needed!
So I decided to start this blog. I've been thinking of doing it for a while. To educate myself about plastic, and hopefully to make some connections and - dare I say - changes for the better?
I'm not even out to change the world...much. I just don't want to pollute our property. You see, we live out of town, off the sewage system. So I couldn't even pollute the oceans if I wanted to (well, I could, but more on that later). It will be our own greywater, our own soil, and our own veggies, that get contaminated with this stuff.
What am I talking about? Well, every time you wash your clothes, little bits of lint and fluff come off and go into the rinse water, they wash away. Fine. But what if that's micro particles of plastic? Where does it all go? Scientists in Ireland took samples from 18 beaches on 6 continents. All samples were full of plastic. How did it get there? Yep, the humble washing machine, washing our not-so-humble plastic clothes.
So I'm hoping to find out more about polyester, acrylic and all their other petrochemical friends, and how we can avoid them in every aspect of our world. I know, I'm sitting here typing on my plastic computer, my washing machine is plastic, my phone... I don't want to wear a hair shirt and live in a cave. But I'm convinced there's just WAY too much plastic in our world. And it's driven by an economic imperative. Now, with all that we know about plastic, we should and can do something about it.
Check out your clothes right now... I'd hazard a guess and say some part of your wardrobe has plastic in it. Mine does...
The name of the shop I bought the clothes from is Cotton On, so I thought... you know, they'd be 100% cotton (not that that's not probelmatic either, but more on that in another post). OK, caveat emptor, I didn't read the label! Terrible oversight, and I will be reading future clothing labels with my magnifying glass... and my specs. But here's the rub, well another rub... You can't read the label. I checked out the site, and there's nothing indicating what the clothes are made from.
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| 100 % acrylic from Plastic On |
So I decided to start this blog. I've been thinking of doing it for a while. To educate myself about plastic, and hopefully to make some connections and - dare I say - changes for the better?
I'm not even out to change the world...much. I just don't want to pollute our property. You see, we live out of town, off the sewage system. So I couldn't even pollute the oceans if I wanted to (well, I could, but more on that later). It will be our own greywater, our own soil, and our own veggies, that get contaminated with this stuff.
What am I talking about? Well, every time you wash your clothes, little bits of lint and fluff come off and go into the rinse water, they wash away. Fine. But what if that's micro particles of plastic? Where does it all go? Scientists in Ireland took samples from 18 beaches on 6 continents. All samples were full of plastic. How did it get there? Yep, the humble washing machine, washing our not-so-humble plastic clothes.
So I'm hoping to find out more about polyester, acrylic and all their other petrochemical friends, and how we can avoid them in every aspect of our world. I know, I'm sitting here typing on my plastic computer, my washing machine is plastic, my phone... I don't want to wear a hair shirt and live in a cave. But I'm convinced there's just WAY too much plastic in our world. And it's driven by an economic imperative. Now, with all that we know about plastic, we should and can do something about it.
Check out your clothes right now... I'd hazard a guess and say some part of your wardrobe has plastic in it. Mine does...
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