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Bring our own cups so we don’t have to throw away anything

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Like plastic is bad for the environment
Chloe

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By Finn!

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Rayon is a material used for clothes but it is not ec friendly it is poison it is hurting the environment so we have to stop buying it to save the environment. By Nate

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This is why the sea animals are dying.Jeric

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Rahul

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Plastic containers are not good for the environment 

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Plastic containers are not good for the environment 

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Sajini

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I 've learnt strongly about plastic bottles.First I thought it was hard but now it's fun, ispeshaly activitys. I love this U.O.I.from thouy Gatkouth

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I 've learnt strongly about plastic bottles.First I thought it was hard but now it's fun, ispeshaly activitys. I love this U.O.I.from thouy Gatkouth

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Material

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Toby

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Why marine animals can't stop eating plastic

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Plastic doesn't just look like food, it smells, feels and even sounds like food.

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plastic bottles is bad for the environmen
Josh Kaleb

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Don't release balloons into the environment 

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Don't release balloons into the environment 

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BTN.com is the official Big Ten sports site of TV's Big Ten Network.

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Plastic cups are not healthy for the environment  and the ocean from Gautham and Jinuka and Rahul.

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Bella Vienna.  Carissa

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https://www.abc.net.au/btn/classroom/violent-toys/10524618

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You can recycle plastic bottles do not litter

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You can recycle plastic bottles do not litter

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Phoebe

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My work     Bella

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Ishaan

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Join Craig Reucassel in this three-part series, on a mission to see if we, as a nation, can reduce our waste. #WarOnWasteAU

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They are reduce reuse and recycle
Nijani

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I learnt that fur is a really bad thing for the entire entire because they are killing animals

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Toby

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This refresh of our classic Deep Dive was made possible by the sponsorship of 1 People, a Danish sustainable luxury brand with effortlessly timeless looks for conscious-minded women so that they can stay stylish in an ethical, high-quality fashion. Shop the above looks.

Years ago, when I visited a trendy store in LA, I saw a label crowing about a "natural" and "biodegradable" fiber that was "woven in a mill free of harmful substances such as heavy metals, dyes, and formaldehyde."

It was talking about viscose, alternatively known as rayon, a soft and silky fabric that you'll find in skirts, dresses, jackets, and linings.

If you've decided to swear off polyester, a plastic petroleum product, you might be thinking rayon and its siblings are the solution. After all, they're soft, silky, and feel wonderful on the skin, and are also preferred by people with eczema and sensitive skin. But there are two major drawbacks to manmade cellulosics:

1. The way they're made (often with toxic chemicals)

2. How the plants are sourced (often from old-growth rainforests)

Rayon, viscose, modal, Tencel, and lyocell, are all manmade cellulosic fibers. Their core ingredient is plant cellulose, making them technically plant-based. But unlike fibers like cotton, linen, and hemp, manmade cellulosics are not grown on a farm. They're manufactured in a factory, making them synthetic.

There is a type of manmade cellulosic that is better. But first, let's learn about the history of these fibers.

The Fabric That Makes Textile Workers Go Insane

Rayon was invented almost 150 years ago. Since it started being widely commercially produced in the 1920s, it has become more and more popular, with the global output of viscose rayon projected to reach $28 billion in 2025.

Most rayon is made from plants that you could never imagine as fabric: bamboo and trees. These tough plant materials are broken down through a chemical and mechanical process involving sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide, and made into a viscous molasses-like substance called dope. That is then spun into threads using sulfuric acid. Imagine a tiny pasta-making machine and you get the idea.

These chemicals are so toxic that there are no rayon producers in the US - it would be almost impossible to comply with the standards of the EPA's and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). While rayon fabric is safe by the time it reaches consumers, rayon factory workers are at high risk of neurophysiological effects, nerve damage, heart disease, and stroke.

And that's inside the factory. If you have a factory dumping these chemicals into the waterway, the whole community can be poisoned. According to a report that came out in 2017 by the Changing Markets Foundation, in Indonesia, rayon factory workers have been found washing the chemicals off of rayon textiles right in the river. In China, there's abundant evidence of rayon production poisoning workers and the local bodies of water, even turning a lake black. In India, a plant was dumping into a tributary to the Ganges, poisoning local families and causing the mental faculties of children to degenerate before they reached their teens.

Because of the high concentration of the rayon industry- 75% of it is dominated by 10 companies- it's highly probable that any conventional brand you can think of has sourced rayon from the type of dirty factories implicated in the report.

The Palm Oil of Fabric

It's not just toxic chemicals that make rayon problematic. It's the trees being cut down to make it.

More than 200 million trees from Indonesia, Canada, and Brazil are logged every year and turned into cellulosic fabric, according to Canopy, a nonprofit advocacy organization that protects global forests from being harvested for paper and textiles. In Indonesia, endangered animals and native people are being forced off the land, so that the local pulp mills can be steadily supplied with trees. And tragically, the typical process for dissolving pulp for rayon wastes about 70% of the tree!

Modal is made from different types of softwood such as beechwood, which is great if it's sourced from well-managed European or North American forests. But Canopy found that modal has also been linked to deforestation.

Another fabric that is often marketed as inherently eco-friendly is bamboo, because it grows quickly without the use of pesticides or herbicides. But it has come under fire repeatedly for being misrepresented. The FTC has fined Nordstrom, Bed Bath & Beyond, Backcountry, J.C. Penney , Amazon, Macy's, Kmart, Sears and more for labeling rayon made from bamboo as simply "bamboo fabric." That's sort of like putting high fructose corn syrup in a food product and listing it as "corn." Yes, it was once corn, but it's since been transformed into a manmade product that has serious negative implications. Forests in China are also being logged and replaced with bamboo plantations for bamboo rayon.

There's no way to know as a consumer where your modal clothing is coming from - wildcat Asian plantations or well-managed European and North American forests. So as a designer, you should source from the reputable brands Lenzing and Aditya Birla, who have been certified by CanopyStyle as having a low risk of sourcing from endangered forests. That covers a little less than a third of global viscose production. The rest is rather iffy.

What Is the Eco-Friendly Rayon Choice?

There is hope. As of 2023, over 500 brands, including Levi's, Ralph Lauren, H&M, Zara, Eileen Fisher, Stella McCartney, VF Corp (owner of Timberland, North Face, and Wrangler), have committed to cleaning up their rayon supply chains. This is due to the excellent work of CanopyStyle, a subsidiary of Canopy.

But if you would like to support a small brand with less purchasing power, you could do worse than looking for designs in Lenzing's Modal, a more eco-friendly and softer version of rayon, because it uses closed-loop processing that doesn't output toxins into the environment. That is the soft fabric used in the sustainable Danish brand 1 People's maxi dress, pictured up top.

Another thing you can do is look for rayon and bamboo rayon that have the labels which mean the fabric was produced in facilities that take the necessary safety and environmental precautions.

But Tencel, a trademarked fabric also by Lenzing, is widely accepted as the most sustainable manmade cellulosic fiber widely available. It's a branded version of what is generically called lyocell. Tencel is silky soft and absorbent, and is produced using amine oxide, which is purported to be safer, in an entirely closed-loop process - the chemicals aren't discharged into the water. It's made of certified sustainably-sourced eucalyptus. Fast-growing eucalyptus tree varieties are adaptable to almost every continent and climate, and often can be grown on land that couldn't otherwise be farmed. Tencel has a certain feel and look, and can't replace all of rayon's uses. But many fashion brands and designers can be more sustainable by starting with Tencel and designing around it.

Finally, there is a lot of exciting innovation and startups that promise to decrease the use of toxic chemicals and pull from more sustainable sources. The Swedish material innovation company Renewcell processes old cotton textiles into feedstock for rayon production, the product is called Circulose. It opened the doors to its commercial-scale facility in late 2022, and can supply all sorts of cellulosic manufacturers, including Tencel, modal, and typical rayon viscose. Other manmade cellulosic fiber startups include Infinited Fiber, Spinnova, and Evrnu, which are all at the pilot stage.

In Conclusion

Yes, rayon viscose and other manmade cellulosic are plant-based and biodegradable. But the toxic chemicals used and the trees cut down to make a lot of these fabrics make it a bad choice for conscious designers and consumers. Look for the labels Tencel, Lenzing, Aditya Birla, Oeko-Tex, bluesign, and Circulose to feel a bit better about what you're buying and wearing.

Ruth Alden Wicker is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of EcoCult. Along with growing EcoCult to be the leading international information hub for sustainable fashion, she also writes for publications including Vogue, The New York Times, Wired, The Cut, Vox, InStyle, Popular Science, Harper's Bazaar, Quartz, Inc. Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Craftsmanship Quarterly, Refinery29, Narratively, and many more.

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Viscose Rayon Is Bad for the Planet. Here Are Eco Alternatives

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Sworn off polyester? Rayon viscose is billed as an eco-friendly fabric that is made of plants. But there are more sustainable alternatives!

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Lego cars are bad for the environment  because it is made from plastic and the package is made from wood which will cut down trees and we need trees to survive sine they give us oxygen to survive also breaking other animals homes from Jinuka

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Ishaan

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Evie

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Join Craig Reucassel in this three-part series, on a mission to see if we, as a nation, can reduce our waste. #WarOnWasteAU

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I learnt that takeaway coffee cups are dangerous to the environment because they have a plastic lining.
Nijani