Plastic Wrapped
~ This article first appeared in the Leader Vindicator newspaper. ~
For nearly every of the one thousand, three hundred and twenty three nights that have passed since his birth, I’ve read our son a bedtime story. Upon completion of the final page, I pick up my sweet, innocent, precious little boy, wrap him up in plastic, and place him in his bed.
If that was uncomfortable to read, imagine how I feel as a parent having realized I’ve been doing it. I fancy myself a competent guy; to miss something so obvious so many times works against that presumption.
It’s the disguise that got me. From the unobservant perspective, the grey blanket is soft to the touch, warm, and perfectly sized for a child. But the label reveals the villain of bedtime: 100% Polyester.
I checked the label after discovering an outfit called Fibershed. They’re based in California with affiliate organizations across the United States. The mission of Fibershed is clear: They’re begging people to abandon counterfeit fibers in favor of animal and plant derived textiles. In a society that seems so enamored with a fake technological future, it’s great to find people rowing against the tide and singing praises for a real sheep.
Virginia shepherd Francis Cestari points out that chemical companies are forerunners in the sustainability discussion. That is obvious when we examine buying patterns. Many people who hate petroleum and plastic are trained to also hate livestock and farming. Instead of an aversion to environmentally persistent products derived from finite resources, the “environmental movement” discourages natural fiber and embraces petroleum products. That’s a fantastic misalignment of values. How do they do it?
Chemical companies can’t achieve this societal detachment by speaking directly to the people, so they advocate through less offensive mediums: clothing. Their camouflage tactics are remarkably effective.
Think about every hugely popular outdoor clothing company – yes, those that win the ‘greatest business’ awards every year, those that abhor the thought of real fur in their lineup. Outdoorsy mission statements proclaim environmental preservation. In keeping with the developed rhetoric, these businesses very publicly thumb their noses at livestock, promoting the destroyed-wilderness evil-farmer speech that has saturated society and government. Then the thoughtful, humane, outdoor-loving companies make their clothing out of oil and sell it by the literal truckload to people who have been seriously duped. Check out a nice ski resort or a popular mountain trail for the finest examples of trendy plastic adornment. If you listen carefully, beyond the silence of the wild you can hear marketers laughing as people who arrived in hybrid cars wear petroleum on their backs.
Plastic doesn’t rot. Accumulated plastic is so ubiquitous in the environment that scientists say we ingest it regularly. It comes out in the wastewater of our washing machines and sticks to our skin when we get cozy with “vegan fibers” (that’s a real label I noticed in a store; the blanket was plastic). According to the blog MAMAVATION, PFAS, man-made cancer-causing forever chemicals, are present in numerous brands of synthetic active wear. The website sums it up nicely: “Best to stick with natural fabrics like cotton if you are purchasing for low impact” (Segedie, 2022, para. 13).
I recently completed a wardrobe audit to test the rot-ability of my clothes. My pants and underwear are cotton, as are about half of my t-shirts. The other half of t-shirts is a mix of cotton and plastic, mostly a 60/40 fusion.
Button-down shirts are almost evenly split between 100% natural and a blend of real and fake. My socks are a blend, and many of my long sleeve shirts are a blend.
My cold-weather gear is almost entirely synthetic, from long underwear to “rain defending” outerwear.
Our household blankets fail miserably, most spun from man-made fiber. My family got me a 100% Virginia wool throw for Christmas, and it has rocketed to the top of my prize possession list.
I don’t want to live in bubble wrap. It’s obvious that I have some work to do. My intent is to purge plastics from the wardrobe, choosing as much as possible place-specific fabrics to protect me from the elements. Given the slow clothing turnover I adhere to, this will take some time, but it’s a mission that will keep me occupied. Tracing a shirt back to the farm ensures my clothes were grown to a standard I favor.
Can you pull your eyes away from the cinematic event created to alter society’s perception? It won’t be easy; the propaganda that keeps buyers hooked on artificial consumption is all-encompassing. And of course it is; imagine the shift of power that would occur if consumers stopped buying the “environmental plastic” charade. To clothe ourselves, we would have to look for something different, and the new desire would certainly impregnate the petri dish for local textile companies to grow in. That’s a lot of power coming back to home instead of flying away to parts unknown.
When it comes to clothing, we’re never encouraged to look beyond the buy. Let’s start. See if you can trace your wardrobe back to the soil; you might be as shocked as I was. When your shirt is biodegradable, place-specific, and linked to soil-building culture, it will indeed become something of a prize instead of a snapshot of fleeting fashion that will be deemed unfashionable by year’s end. With deliberate effort, everything in the closet can be your favorite.
Sources:
Segedie, L. (2022, January 18). Non-Toxic Activewear Guide: PFAS “Forever Chemicals” in Workout Leggings & Yoga Pants. MAMAVATION. https://www.mamavation.com/product-investigations/non-toxic-activewear-guide-pfas-workout-leggings-yoga-pants.html