Cotton or Polyester: which one to choose if you care about the environment?
To determine which of these two popular fabrics is more eco-friendly, we should compare the environmental impact at every step of their life cycle.
✔︎ Raw material extraction
Cotton growing takes a lot of water, about 2700 liters for one T-shirt, and some chemicals and pesticides. More and more often, we see clothes made from organic cotton that doesn't require any chemicals, and the quantity of the water slashed to 2457 liters.
Polyester derives from either petroleum or recycled plastic. Unquestionably, the last one is a more climate-friendly choice.
✔︎ Production
During the production of a cotton T-shirt, the CO2 equivalent (carbon footprint) separates in the volume of 4.3 kg, while for a similar polyester T-shirt will be 5.5 kg. However, sometimes the cotton fabric requires more toxic bleaches and colorants harmful to the environment.
✔︎ Maintenance
In the wash, polyester leaves microplastics behind. The fact is that 35% of microplastics go to the ocean directly from washers. Synthetic fabrics demand a lot of washes as well because they easily absorb any smells.
In this sense, cotton is much more eco-friendly, but its wear resistance depends on the quality and often loses out to polyester.
✔︎ Conclusion
As we can see, there is no direct answer to which one material is safer for the environment. The only thing we could try out is comparing two "real" T-shirts, but in this case, we have to take into account too many factors.
The good news is that we can slow down the ecological impact by buying fewer new clothes, which is to say, wearing existing clothes as long as possible and buying second-hand stuff.
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