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Sustainability and Performance In Textiles

Originally posted by Deidre Hoquet

Consumers are increasingly considering the sustainability of their purchases as they gain access to an array of fabrics that are practically self-cleaning. Is it possible to make a sustainable and high-performance fabric – or are these two things mutually exclusive?

What constitutes a sustainable textile?

Broadly speaking, the answer lies in four main factors: raw material extraction, sustainable textile manufacturing, added chemistry and end-of-life.

Raw material extraction for example, addresses the land and water used to grow natural fibers like cotton and wool, or the impacts of extracting fossil fuels for synthetic fibers such as polyester or nylon.

Production considerations include the water and energy used for manufacturing, the impact of production waste and a company’s social responsibility towards its workers and the communities that surround its production facilities. Added chemistries, including dyes, finishes and coatings, may impact the health of textile workers as well as consumers of the final product.

Finally, the end-of-life scenario, including textile biodegradability and the reclamation infrastructure required to turn it into new raw material, strongly affect its sustainability.

What constitutes a high performance fabric?

Ultimately it comes down to longevity. As such, the first consideration is durability, or the degree to which a fabric resists deterioration. Tied in with this is the question of maintenance, or the ease with which a consumer can clean stains from carpet and upholstery or launder drapery and clothing.

In this context, longevity is an aspect of its sustainability. After all, garments that must be discarded after a short time are hardly sustainable. For that matter, neither are carpets or furniture textiles that need to be regularly replaced.

The hazards of performance additives

To produce a “high performance” fabric, sustainable fabric manufacturers either embed chemicals in a material’s yarn or apply finishes or coatings to a material after production. “Easy care” fabrics for example, receive stain resistant finishes, including perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), which are also used to make “nonstick” cookware.

Extreme use fabrics, like sportswear or hospital-use textiles, often have antimicrobial finishes, including silver and triclosan/triclocarban. As for flame retardant textiles, they tend to rely on halogenated flame retardants, which are added to their fibers.

While these chemicals improve performance, there is a growing consensus that they may also pose hazards to human and environmental health. PFCs, for example, are considered persistent and bioaccumulative, and have been found in humans and animals worldwide.

In addition to health concerns for users of treated textiles, many of the health risks can be higher for workers in textile finishing plants as well as the communities surrounding the plants. Epidemiological studies on PFCs have found probable links between PFC exposure and kidney cancer, testicular cancer and thyroid disease, among other concerns.

Not surprisingly, the LEED for Healthcare Furnishings credit lists PFCs as a “chemical to avoid”. They have also been singled out by the industry group Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) as a chemical to be phased out of apparel products by January 2015.

Antimicrobials, including silver and triclosan/triclocarban, have come under similar scrutiny. While purportedly limiting mold, mildew and pathogen growth on treated fabrics, their widespread use is thought to have contributed to the spike in antibiotic resistance and (particularly for Triclosan) to endocrine disruption in humans. The American Medical Association has warned that “it may be prudent to avoid the use of antimicrobial agents in consumer products.”

They are also potentially dangerous for the environment. A 2012 study by the Swedish Chemical Agency showed that up to 50% of antimicrobial treatments rinsed out after just 10 washes. These chemicals then went down the drain and into waterways. Antimicrobial additives have been singled out for avoidance in the LEED for Healthcare Furnishings credit, and are avoided by some major healthcare systems.

Halogenated flame retardants have also come under attack. Although they are regularly added to certain clothing and furnishings textiles to meet strict flammability standards in the US and the UK, recent reports have shown that they do not improve overall fire safety. They do, however, jeopardize human health: blood levels of widely used flame retardants are found in virtually all US citizens, and young children in the US now have some of the highest levels of flame retardants in their blood worldwide. We need sustainable textile manufacturing.

Some governments have begun taking action: product flammability standards are now undergoing review in several countries, and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants has listed a number of halogenated flame retardants to be banned globally to promote sustainable textile manufacturing.

In addition to the health and environmental risks, adding chemical finishes to textiles can negatively affect the sustainability pathways for fabrics at their end-of-life. Natural fabrics like cotton or wool, that could biodegrade post-use, are not able to do so safely if they are laden with chemicals. 

Sustainability and performance: can you have it all?

With the health implications becoming ever more evident, it’s worth asking what kind of performance is necessary for fabrics, and what level of risk is acceptable for the continued use of harmful additives. Fortunately, performance can be found in safer alternatives that are now entering the market, and in natural fibers that have perhaps been overlooked for their performance attributes.

One promising route is biomimicry, the application of nature’s designs to man-made products. Research in this area has already led to the development of textiles that mimic the stain resistant properties found in lotus leaves. Other natural treatments have focused on mimicking the antimicrobial properties of crab and lobster shells. Textile applications of these technologies are already gaining strength.

Another route is to use existing fibers that have both performance and sustainable attributes in sustainable textile manufacturing. One example is solution-dyed nylon, which is widely used in carpet, upholstery and apparel. Solution dying, a process of locking the color into the fiber itself, produces a high-performing fabric. In garment applications, it produces clothing that does not fade after repeated laundering. Solution-dyed nylon furnishings, including carpet and upholstery, can withstand strong cleaning regimes without fading or deteriorating.

Since solution-dyed nylon is already highly cleanable, it obviates the need for an added stain-resistant finish. At the same time, it greatly reduces the water used in production during sustainable textile manufacturing, which has long been a sustainability issue for textiles. And it’s also very reclaimable: when a consumer is finally done with his or her nylon carpet or upholstery, a widespread reclamation infrastructure already exists to recycle it back into new fiber.

Another sustainable textile manufacturing high-performance option is also one of the oldest: wool. Wool has several sustainable attributes: it is rapidly renewable, biodegradable, recyclable, and can be produced organically. There are also new wool traceability standards and animal welfare standards to track its production.

In terms of performance, wool is something of a miracle fabric. Highly durable, with inherent flame-resistant properties, it also has some natural water repellency. While not as slippery and oil-repellent as a perfluorinated finish, wool’s performance attributes are laudable without the added chemistry.

Ultimately, while the production of sustainable high performance fabrics will likely involve cutting-edge research, it must also involve a change in the notion of high performance. Customers and producers must adjust their notions of self-cleaning fabrics and accept that clothing, carpet and furniture require regular care and maintenance, preferably with biodegradable detergents and nontoxic cleaners. They must remember older technologies, like naturally water and flame-resistant wool, even as they pursue and purchase innovative new materials.

Deidre Hoguet is the director of sustainability and material exploration at Designtex, a materials company that is a recognized innovator in the research and development of textiles, wallcoverings, and digitally imaged materials with reduced environmental impact

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