You’re an eco-hypocrite, but it’s not your fault — you’ve been sold a recycling lie

This is a hard pill to swallow for anyone tuned into climate change

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

If you’ve been anywhere near a store or the internet lately, you’ve no doubt seen ads for recycled swimwear, fleece jackets, shoes, and other clothing. On the surface, making clothes out of recycled plastic and used clothes seems like a brilliant solution to a massive global problem. We are asphyxiating the planet with plastic and discarded clothing — why not make something useful with it?

Brands from Patagonia to Adidas to fast-fashion giant H&M are touting their “eco-friendly” product lines these days, with everything from recycled ocean plastic packaging to recycled polyester clothing. Well-meaning consumers are seduced by these green claims, desperate to make good choices for the environment. We’ve been tricked into believing it’s our responsibility to recycle, reduce our carbon footprints, and shop ethically to “save the planet.” If we can buy recycled synthetic clothing, doesn’t that mean we’re doing our part?

Sorry to break it to you, but no. Synthetic fabrics, recycled or not, perpetuate reliance on fossil fuels; this is a hard pill to swallow for anyone tuned into climate change. Recycled synthetic fabrics let us “feel good” but don’t require that we pay attention to the waste we are generating, or the fact that our addiction to consumption is unsustainable and wreaking havoc on the planet.

Synthetic fabric sheds minuscule plastic particles known as microfibers, which pollute soils and waterways, poison wildlife along the entire food chain, and harm human health. Microfibers don’t discriminate. There is no distinction between microfibers shed from a jacket made from post-consumer recycled Coke bottles versus one made from virgin fossil fuels.

Patagonia estimates that every time you wash your fleece jacket, it “sheds thousands to millions of microfibers” into the drain. When you open your dryer, you are also breathing in toxic fibers; you are literally inhaling your clothing.

Municipal wastewater reclamation facilities cannot completely filter out all microfibers, so the microfibers from your laundry that don’t end up in your lungs are ending up in your waterways. Microfibers leach toxic chemicals like performance additives, waterproofing, and manufacturing chemicals, and absorb other toxic chemicals already present in waterways, like BPA, PFAS, pesticides, fertilizers, and dioxins. Tiny organisms like plankton mistake microfibers for food; microfibers clog the esophagus or stomach, starving or poisoning the plankton or bioaccumulating up the food chain. Microfibers are everywhere, even in human blood.

A recent report by the Changing Markets Foundation found that the majority of fashion brands are prioritizing recycled polyester as the primary way to reduce the impacts of fossil-based fashion, with little to no acknowledgement of the detrimental environmental impacts or the negative consequences of immortalizing a consumer system designed to create waste. Eighty-five percent of brands said recycled PET bottles were their primary or only feedstock for recycled polyester. None of the brands reported goals or targets for garment-to-garment recycling.

H&M invested millions of dollars into technology to recycle polyester, and has no plans to reduce production. Across the industry, less than 1 percent of used clothing is recycled back into new apparel.

Patagonia is outspoken about the issue of microfibers, but it is also one of the most well-known retailers bringing synthetic clothing to the market. Its current “solution” to the problem is 100 percent consumer-based and puts the responsibility solely in the hands of their customers: purchase a “guppy friend” filter bag (from Patagonia) or hire a professional to install a filter on your washing machine. But this “solution” doesn’t address the fact that clothing is still shedding microfibers. Even if they are “captured” in the guppy friend, they still end up “somewhere” (a.k.a. in the consumers’ lungs on the way to the garbage can).

I am the first to admit I’m part of the problem. I’m not Shackleton or bagging 14ers, but I live in a cold climate, and live in my knee-length polyester/down jacket and slippers all winter. I ski, hike, run, and swim. Easily half of my clothing is synthetic. There is no simple way to quit synthetics; it’s ironic that something so damaging is so pervasive in outdoor, nature-focused industries.

The bottom line is, we’re all part of the fossil fuel problem, which is seeping into every aspect of our lives. We can’t recycle our way out of the problems industrialized society has created, or the mass consumption mindset we all inhabit. Buying less, buying secondhand, buying higher quality clothing, repairing items, and refusing to purchase anything made with synthetic fibers is a good start, but that alone is not enough to address the magnitude of the problem. We can wash our clothes less, but that just slaps on a Band-Aid while the carotid artery bleeds out.

We can and should make behavior changes to stop contributing to this problem. However, it seems to me that fashion companies’ success depends on consumers upholding the lie that it’s our responsibility to fix the problems they’ve created. It’s unlikely they will voluntarily change. We have a waste problem because companies are overproducing, and prioritizing growth and profit over sustainability. This is not a problem that can be solved by individuals, no matter how hard we try — it has to be solved by governments and industries, and many of those industries profit from making you feel bad about your personal choices.

So what should you do if you really want to help prevent climate change? I’m all for innovations that can lessen the damage we’re doing to the world. But I also have to admit the uncomfortable truth: I’m an environmental hypocrite. I dutifully separate and clean my recycling, knowing it will likely end up in landfill. I compost, but still waste too much food. I have way too much stuff, yet on my hundredth trip to donate random junk I didn’t need or use, I ponder clever ad campaigns promising me that “get out of jail free” card, and wonder whether buying a new recycled yoga pants is better than thrifting a new-to-me pair.

It’s hard to live in this reality, where you want to contribute meaningfully to the world but find yourself with a lack of control. The answer is to think systemic, rather than individual. Pressure your government to push for supply chain transparency, non-toxic circularity, and Extended Producer Responsibility legislation, placing accountability for textile waste on producers, rather than consumers.

Most importantly, educate yourself and raise awareness of this issue. Read the Synthetics Anonymous report. Call out greenwashing on social media. Buy from brands with clear (and third-party verifiable) climate and sustainability commitments.

Voting with your dollars makes a difference. Sadly, taking your recycling out probably doesn’t.

A spokesperson for H&M said: “The report raises important challenges for the whole industry, including the use of fossil-fuel based fibers for fashion products and the importance of credible sustainability claims, two areas in which we have been proactively working for many years... We base all our product sustainability claims on credible third-party certification schemes for our materials to ensure sustainable sourcing and integrity. When it comes to our material usage, cotton is actually the most frequently used material for our products followed by synthetic materials – around 27 percent of our material use accounts for polyester. Having said that, we agree with the reports that recycled polyester from single-use plastic bottles shouldn’t be the long-term solution for the industry.”

Patagonia did not immediately reply to a request for comment. On their website, they state: “We’ve built robust environmental responsibility and animal welfare programs to guide how we make our materials and products, which you can read more about here.”

Heather Higinbotham is currently working on a book about sustainability and environmentalism titled ‘The Misadventures of an Environmental Hypocrite’. She holds an MS in Environmental Science and an MBA in Sustainable Systems