April 26th, 2022 - Microplastics in soil and challenges with textiles

Prompted by some articles shared by Rathi today on microplastics in soil and microplastics from textiles, I decided to spend a little bit of time on the topic. It helps to be dealing with a few of these topics at work. The whole debate on plastics and pollution is not as easy if you get into all the details and especially the issue of microplastics in the soil is quite complicated. Plastics are so prevalent in our lives that it is hard to figure out where to start. 

A class of fertilizers called controlled-release fertilizers or slow-release fertilizers are an important class as they can reduce the environmental impact of fertilizers. Recently fertilizers that more fully fit the description “controlled release” have been developed—made possible by sophisticated materials and manufacturing techniques that can tune the shells so that they alter nutrient-release rates in desired ways as the soil’s temperature, and acidity or moisture changes. Scott's miracle grow is an example of such a product. Controlled-release fertilizers are part of a sustainable approach to agriculture known as precision farming. Polymers are typically used to tune these properties. This is an example where plastics play a beneficial role in agriculture with respect to climate change and pollution. But this can also lead to the plastic left behind in the soil. The European Union has regulations kicking in 2026 where all the controlled-release fertilizers would need to use biodegradable materials. You can also see mulch foils used heavily in agriculture. They have both benefits and drawbacks. Again, there is work to develop biodegradable foils (much like the biodegradable garbage bag) that help with alleviating this issue. Like any new technology, this is more expensive than incumbent technology and adoption will only happen with regulations. 


Some of the articles that were shared talked about the impact of textiles on microplastics in the environment. Reduced washing of clothes and also less consumption were mentioned as some of the mitigation measures. The world’s multibillion-dollar textile industry generates 1.2 billion metric tons of CO2 annually, more than the emissions from all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Clothing is massively underutilized. According to the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, globally customers miss out on $460 billion of value each year by throwing away clothes that they could continue to wear, and some garments are estimated to be discarded after just ten wears. The circular economy in textiles is just evolving. Recycling textile is quite complicated because of the collection and also due to the use of blended textiles. The problem is enormous. Almost 50% of the textiles are PET/Cotton blends and any recycling technology needs to address the cellulosic by-product that will be generated. Cotton farming has a major agricultural footprint and if the cellulose from recycling can be reused in textile manufacture this could reduce the overall footprint of the textile industry. 


In one of the early posts, we shared the video where we saw Yvon Chouinard the founder and CEO of Patagonia talking about sustainability in textile manufacturing and the supply chain. He was talking about regenerative farming but there are probably many areas to address within textile manufacturing.

We can do our part to reduce our individual impact with responsible selection and consumption. 


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