www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2024/sustainability-fashion-fabric-biodegradable/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com
Biodegradable fabric might be the next best thing in clothing
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Because fast fashion makes it so easy to throw things away. Clothes should be made to last! And be kept for a long time.
Synthetic fibers are a general problem because they are continuously shed while wearing and washing the clothes
There's plenty of biodegradable synthetic fibers that are less energy intensive than natural ones. Don't confuse natural with sustainable, nor artificial with unsustainable. They tend to coincide, but there are many very important exceptions.
I don't know any biodegradable synthetic fiber. What would be an example? Is it fully biodegradable or it just leaves a ton of microplastics behind?
Really? You probably haven't looked for them then. Google biodegradable plastics. Theres myriad. Don't confuse them with bioplastics. Those are of organic origin, but not necessarily biodegradable. Regarding microplastics, there's a bit of both, depending of which standard of biodegradability they adhere to. Stricter standards require true biodegradability, while laxer ones just require stuff to not be visible. We are still lacking more expertise in how to properly use these for fibers, but there's a lot of advancements and science being published all the time.
And most of them are not recycled cause its not worth the cost and effort.
And most of them never will. The extend of sorting we would need for this is something else that will never happen.
You don't need to recycle biodegradable plastics. You could compost them I guess, but compostable is a different standard with it's own complications.