Many of us are now dressed head to toe in plastic.
A textile derived from the same non-renewable source as takeaway containers, has grown to make up more than half of the clothes bought in Australia.
Polyester is durable, cheap, and dries quickly. It’s also easy to print patterns on.
It’s commonly used by itself or as a blend with other textiles. It’s used for gym clothes and sports uniforms, party dresses, work attire, and many cheap fast fashion items.
And every purchase is taking an environmental toll.
One Australian study by RMIT found a single 100 per cent polyester T-shirt has a carbon footprint — from creation through to when you dump it in the bin — equivalent to 20.56 kilograms of CO2 emissions (CO2e).
That’s equivalent to driving 140 kilometres. Buy just six tops, and that gets you all the way from Melbourne to Sydney.
So, what’s involved in getting a T-shirt from a fossil fuel, to the one you might be wearing right now? Here’s its journey along the supply chain.
Can you machine wash it? A lot of textile “alternatives” that i see often tend to be listed as “hand wash only”.
And weeds aren’t a thing. It’s just a term used for plants that people don’t want in their gardens.
Contextually, “grows like a weed” means “grows really fast and hardily”.
Bamboo is fine to machine wash as far as I know. At least I have always used the washing machine for it and all my stuff is fine.
To an extent I agree about your perspective on weeds themselves, the only thing I would argue is some plants are pretty invasive and can kill off others, so they are worth removing or at least keeping in check.