Just kinda wondering out loud here, but I have mostly vintage clothes and a lot are polyester blends, some with rayon, do these still shed microplastics after 30-60 years? tbh i rarely wash them cause they're delicate. Not sure if it's something that goes away, or if older materials were different, etc
All washing results in shed fibers. It does. Washing is a destructive action. To remove stains, smells, dirt, food, makeup, oils, etc is to damage the fibers and inevitably some are damaged enough that the physical forces at work in agitating them in a washing machine cause tiny pieces of fibers to come lose and are washed down the drain. In fact the physical actions and water themselves are damaging in small ways (as is heat, if you want to keep your clothes fresher longer, do not run your dryer super hot, ideally get them just between slightly damp and dry and then hang to dry). It reminds me of that story about how a detergent company's ad people came to the scientists and said they wanted a detergent that would make clothing newer, scientists said that's not possible but came up with an acceptable alternative which is a detergent that makes clothing look newer by more effectively destroying fuzz, frizz, loose ends, etc, e.g. by more quickly destroying the clothing.
That said. There is a certain amount of extra loose, extra easily shed fibers with new clothing from the factory so older clothing would shed less and if you wear the same clothing for 4 years instead of buying 4 sets of it in that time you've probably drastically reduced the amount being shed on your behalf.
It's why ideally you don't want to over-wash clothing. The physical forces are stressful on fabrics as well in their own right. Not useful to you but for those who wear bras, try to avoid washing then wearing. You want to rotate them to give the fabrics/shape time to kind of heal from both the strains of being worn in the case of a bra and from the wash. Ideally one should have more than 3 bras. I think it goes, one in the wash, one to wear, one recovering from wearing.
Honestly I wouldn't worry about this individualistic ethical consumption crap. As long as you have capitalist fast fashion, capitalist oil companies, capitalist fiber producing companies all invested as pushers to sell more it's not going to be resolved. The plastic problem is a societal level one that won't be fixed by changing buying habits. It needs to be addressed with regulations and ideally economic planning. Because any good action you might take on wearing all cotton clothing is undone by wasteful practices in plastic packaging at the grocery or the clothing store. Sorry to get back on underwear but this one lingerie shop I went to for a while had this system where they literally shipped every single pair of panties in individual plastic packaging. The sales people then took it out of the packaging and put it on display and in drawers. And they weren't shipped loose either, they were in like boxes so it was completely unnecessary. That kind of shit needs to stop. In the meantime you'll pry my nylon underwear from my cold dead hands.
Just kinda wondering out loud here, but I have mostly vintage clothes and a lot are polyester blends, some with rayon, do these still shed microplastics after 30-60 years? tbh i rarely wash them cause they're delicate. Not sure if it's something that goes away, or if older materials were different, etc
All washing results in shed fibers. It does. Washing is a destructive action. To remove stains, smells, dirt, food, makeup, oils, etc is to damage the fibers and inevitably some are damaged enough that the physical forces at work in agitating them in a washing machine cause tiny pieces of fibers to come lose and are washed down the drain. In fact the physical actions and water themselves are damaging in small ways (as is heat, if you want to keep your clothes fresher longer, do not run your dryer super hot, ideally get them just between slightly damp and dry and then hang to dry). It reminds me of that story about how a detergent company's ad people came to the scientists and said they wanted a detergent that would make clothing newer, scientists said that's not possible but came up with an acceptable alternative which is a detergent that makes clothing look newer by more effectively destroying fuzz, frizz, loose ends, etc, e.g. by more quickly destroying the clothing.
That said. There is a certain amount of extra loose, extra easily shed fibers with new clothing from the factory so older clothing would shed less and if you wear the same clothing for 4 years instead of buying 4 sets of it in that time you've probably drastically reduced the amount being shed on your behalf.
It's why ideally you don't want to over-wash clothing. The physical forces are stressful on fabrics as well in their own right. Not useful to you but for those who wear bras, try to avoid washing then wearing. You want to rotate them to give the fabrics/shape time to kind of heal from both the strains of being worn in the case of a bra and from the wash. Ideally one should have more than 3 bras. I think it goes, one in the wash, one to wear, one recovering from wearing.
Honestly I wouldn't worry about this individualistic ethical consumption crap. As long as you have capitalist fast fashion, capitalist oil companies, capitalist fiber producing companies all invested as pushers to sell more it's not going to be resolved. The plastic problem is a societal level one that won't be fixed by changing buying habits. It needs to be addressed with regulations and ideally economic planning. Because any good action you might take on wearing all cotton clothing is undone by wasteful practices in plastic packaging at the grocery or the clothing store. Sorry to get back on underwear but this one lingerie shop I went to for a while had this system where they literally shipped every single pair of panties in individual plastic packaging. The sales people then took it out of the packaging and put it on display and in drawers. And they weren't shipped loose either, they were in like boxes so it was completely unnecessary. That kind of shit needs to stop. In the meantime you'll pry my nylon underwear from my cold dead hands.