Textiles: A Short Introduction

The fashion industry is a major criminal in environmental pollution and textile is its biggest accomplice.

What are textiles?

Textiles refer to materials that are made of interwoven fibres. Materials such as yarn, cotton and silk are weaved and knitted into textiles and made into manufactured goods such as clothes, gloves and hats (Cornellier, 2020.). Although textiles are not exclusively used for fashion (for example, they also make up our comfy blankets), 60% of its production is destined for the fashion industry . In fact, considering how 90% of clothes are made from cotton or polyester sheets (Bhupinderkaur and Chanchal, 2016 ), I could bet that the apparel you are wearing right now is constructed from these textiles!

Textile and Environmental Pollution

The first and perhaps most polluting part of the textile supply chain is textile production. During production, natural and synthetic fibres are manufactured, dyed and washed before getting distributed for purchase and use. At each stage of the production process, air, water, waste and other pollution is resulted. The Carbon Trust reports that this causes damage not only to the environment, but also to communities living around production sites. In addition, due to the large amount of resources such as energy and water needed to fuel these processes, producers end up burning more fossil fuels and clearing more land, which in turn causes more pollution such as through the emission of more greenhouse gases.

Then, fabric dyeing often utilizes harmful chemicals that eventually end up in our water systems, affecting water chemistry and damaging the health of organisms (De Luca et al., 2019). It is estimated that the textile industry contributes to roughly one-fifth of the world’s water pollution, raising concerns at a global scale. I will not be going into detail about the different types of pollution here, but they will definitely be covered extensively in the next few posts, so do look forward to them!

If textile production is so damaging, why aren’t we stopping it?

Well, the answer to this question is a tricky one.

Textiles such as polyester dominate production due to its performance characteristics and cost-efficiency. It is durable, versatile and more importantly it is highly profitable and has a low production cost. When contrasted to more sustainable methods of producing clothes, these cheap and efficient textiles are the more favoured option for revenue-driven businesses.

Furthermore, for many developing economies such as that of India, textile production forms a major part of the country’s exports and source for employment (Maiti, 2021) making it even harder to stop such practices. It is a matter that is highly intertwined with the environment, social and economic and therefore more analysis of different perspectives are needed before we can understand how to improve its negative impacts.

COMING UP

As I introduce more of such perspectives in the future, perhaps we will have a clearer view to this question. In the meantime, do think about it and I hope the subsequent posts can help you formulate a more critical opinion!

Cheers,

Hui Jie

References

Bhupinderkaur & Chanchal. (2016). Environmental and health concerns of the textile industry. International Journal of Civil, Structural, Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering Research and Development, 6(6), 13-26.

Cornellier, K. (2020, 17 March). The Actual Definition of Textile: It’s Surprisingly Different from Fabric. Contrado. Retrieved from https://www.contrado.co.uk/blog/definition-of-textile/

De Luca, P., Foglia, P., Siciliano, C., Nagy, J. B., & Macario, A. (2019). Water contaminated by industrial textile dye: Study on decolorization process. Environments, 6(9), 101.

Ellen Macarthur Foundation. (2017, 1 December). A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning fashion’s future. Retrieved from https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/a-new-textiles-economy.

Maiti, S. (2021). Employment, efficiency and productivity of Indian Textile Industry: An empirical analysis (Doctoral dissertation, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal, India.)

The Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Company. (2017). The state of fashion 2018. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Retail/Our%20Insights/Renewed%20optimism%20for%20the%20fashion%20industry/The-state-of-fashion-2018-FINAL.ashx

The Carbon Trust. (n.d.). International Carbon Flows, Clothing. Retrieved from https://prod-drupal-files.storage.googleapis.com/documents/resource/public/International%20Carbon%20Flows%20-%20Clothing%20-%20REPORT.pdf

Image Source:

[Untitled illustration of textiles].Contrado. https://www.contrado.co.uk/blog/definition-of-textile//