When Natural Fabrics Refuse to Disappear
Sabine Barrett and Erin Nelson, SETAC
Picture your favorite hoodie, summer dress or well-worn cotton shirt. Soft, familiar, dyed in a color you love. Week after week it goes into the wash, fading a little more until it’s donated, recycled or worse, thrown into a landfill. We like to imagine natural fabrics as harmless, yet their footprint begins at the factory with water use and chemical treatments, continues in the fibers they shed each time we wash them, and ends when they enter waterways and soil after disposal. A new Critical Review by Olivia Skilbeck and co-authors, to be published in the SETAC journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry as part of an upcoming special series and available for preview, suggests it’s not so simple – and the afterlife of textiles is fast becoming a policy concern.
For years, the spotlight has been on synthetic fibers like polyester and nylon. Yet field studies now find more cotton, viscose and other plant-based fibers in our environment. Some surveys find cellulose fibers outnumber synthetics by more than two to one in rivers and coastal waters, even though synthetic fibers make up the majority of global textile production. The reason lies in shedding: cotton releases far more fibers, around a million per kilogram of fabric per wash compared with roughly a hundred thousand from synthetic fibers such as polyester.
Cotton and linen may start as plants, but by the time they reach our closets, they’ve been bleached, dyed and finished with chemical coatings. In the lab, cellulosic textiles can degrade by as much as 89 percent, but in conditions closer to the real world — cooler wash temperatures, shaded soils and cool rivers — that figure can drop by 40 percent or more. Your cotton tee and linen sheets, altered by these chemical treatments, may endure in the environment far longer than you expect.
Reactive dyes, wrinkle-free coatings, water repellents and antimicrobial finishes all reduce biodegradation. Dyed cotton has been shown to break down a third less in seawater, while antimicrobial treatments can slash degradation rates from more than 70 percent to under 10. The very finishes that make clothes colorful, soft or resistant to stains also help them linger.
Wastewater treatment captures most fibers, but millions still slip through. Even what is filtered may end up elsewhere – released as effluent from landfills or as sewage sludge applied to agricultural fields as fertilizer, moving fibers from water to soil where they can persist for years.
This isn’t just an academic concern. Europe is already cracking down on fashion waste, banning the destruction of unsold clothing and considering laws that hold producers responsible for textile afterlives. Without accurate data, policymakers risk assuming that “natural equals harmless,” a misconception that could undermine circular economy goals. Research will be central to setting standards and guiding sustainable design.
The field is evolving quickly. To help close these gaps, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry and Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management are launching a joint special series on the “Effects of Textiles, Microfibers and Chemicals in the Environment.” The series will highlight new research, including the Critical Review by Skilbeck et al., on how textiles and their chemical treatments affect ecosystems and how this knowledge can inform sustainable design and policy. Submissions are due by 31 December 31.
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