Waste Free Edmonton – Waste Free Edmonton

August 28, 2023August 28, 2023

SIX Ways to Make Back-to-School Less Wasteful

Have you started your back-to-school planning and shopping yet? It can be difficult to get ready for school while honoring your values around waste reduction or climate justice, but it’s not impossible! In fact, it might even save you some time and money. We put together six ways to make back-to-school less wasteful for families, educators, and students. Leave a comment with your favourite tip!

EVERYDAY ACTIONS

The “everyday stuff” is what we have most control over as families, educators, students, and broader community members. This includes what we buy, where we shop, and even how we get to school! Some of us have a greater ability – and more responsibility – to address our individual actions and behaviours.

1. REDUCE & REUSE (clothing, supplies)

The first years of school have a few things in common: nervous butterflies on the first day, learning a new teacher’s name, and crayons on the school supply list. You can save yourself the headache of back-to-school shopping, and some money, by keeping all of your supplies from the previous year in a safe space you will easily remember to check in August. Start your back-to-school shopping there, and reuse the items that are in good condition. This also helps once you have the supply list from the teacher or school. If you keep an inventory of your items, you won’t purchase duplicates. Finally, make use of places in your community where you can access used supplies, such as thrift stores, Edmonton’s Reuse Centre and Strathcona County’s Hodge Podge Lodge. They have a lot of options, which includes pens and pencils, as well as clothing and backpacks.

2. SHARE THE WEALTH

Sometimes we have to buy the new backpack or pencil crayons because last year’s is falling apart or never made it home! If you can afford to, consider buying extra supplies and donating them to your child’s school or classroom. A great way to ensure your gift won’t go to waste is by chatting with educators in your community school to see which supplies are in greatest demand in their classroom. Teachers often purchase extra supplies with their own money to ensure that their students are on equitable footing. All it takes is a quick email or phone call to help them out, and they already do so much for our kids and communities.

3. ELIMINATE PLASTIC BAGS (or other single-use items)

The volunteers within Waste Free Edmonton have hosted many litter cleanups in their lives, and one of the most common items we find in school yards are little plastic bags. Consider ways you can eliminate the use of these bags when packing snacks, sandwiches, muffins, and more, by replacing them with reusable alternatives. For example, a quick search through the blue bag turns up plenty of containers that can easily be repurposed. Remind your kids to bring those home in their lunch bag, and you have reusable containers for every season.

SYSTEMIC ACTIONS

The biggest impact we can make is by addressing the underlying system of how our society operates. This is the hard part! Individuals can often feel hopeless or confused when they take waste free actions within a system that has not changed. Thankfully, when individuals come together and form a community, we can change the system for the better and increase the impact of our narrow choices.

CONSIDER ACTIVE TRANSPORT

Take a moment to think about where you live in relation to your child’s school. Do you drive them back and forth? Do they take the school bus or public transit or carpool with a friend? Can they walk or ride their bike? Consider how you can improve access to school within your means. Some families may choose to move closer to their children’s school. Many families don’t have that option, but can look out for school bus service or public transit to minimize their impact. Community solutions can involve carpool – or bike pool – groups, for families who live in and travel to the same neighbourhoods.

With the expansion of our cities into more suburbs, and the fact that new school construction will probably never keep pace, active transportation might be difficult to achieve depending on where you live and where your children attend school. Addressing this system involves advocacy for more public transportation options, bike lanes, and increased density. Options to address this include writing to your city councilor or county representative, outlining your requests for bus rapid transit and bike lanes. If you organize your neighbours and other families in your community, this can have an even larger impact.

JOIN YOUR SCHOOL COUNCIL

School councils are mandated by the Alberta Government, so if there is a public school in your community, there is a school council that could use your help. There are a lot of everyday tasks required of a school council, but the major responsibility they have is fundraising for school amenities that are not otherwise covered in the provincial budget. Parents, educators, and community members are welcome members, and serve an important role to advocate for shared values within the school. This includes making suggestions about how the limited budget is spent, school lunch programs, and limiting waste in other areas of the school. An exciting example of a small group within a school advocating for change comes from an Edmonton highschool. Recently, the students of J Percy Page in Mill Woods advocated with their school and cafeteria to offer halal options as there is a large Muslim population who attends. They were successful, and the changes have been well received.

You can also use this role as a larger community to further advocate for increased budgets to our public school system so there is less burden on educators and families to equip the schools with much needed supplies.

HAVE DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS

One of the most important tools we have as families and community members is sharing our stories. Chatting with our neighbours, other families in the pick up line, educators and school volunteers about our values and why we have chosen to reduce our personal waste or take climate action can have a huge impact. We might not agree on 100% of our ideas, but we can at least start with the knowledge that we all care about our kids and want them to live fulfilling and safe lives.

And remember that our kids are watching us. The more we model climate-respectful behaviours, and talk about why these are in line with our values, the more equipped they will be to have these hard conversations with friends and educators as they move through their school life.

We hope you have a wonderful school year!
Your Partners in Waste Reduction,
Waste Free Edmonton

31 Days of Plastic Free Choices

Happy Plastic Free July!

In celebration of Plastic Free July, we are participating in the 31 Days of Plastic Free Choices challenge! Join in on the fun, together we can turn small steps into a big difference!

Save the graphic to your phone! 👇

June 28, 2023June 27, 2023

How to Travel with a Waste Free Focus

Our values don’t go on vacation when we do. And while it can be difficult to stay true to all of our waste free values when we leave home, travelling is a huge privilege and therefore an amazing opportunity to act upon those values. We can and should explore from a place of respect. How can we take our values on vacation and make a positive impact in a system where the cheap, easy, and wasteful is very accessible? Let’s explore a few ways we can travel with a waste free focus, and some of the consequences for not doing so.

TRAVEL TO EXPERIENCE A DIFFERENT CULTURE – WITH DIFFERENT WASTE PRACTICES

While people travel for many reasons, one of the top is to experience a city or culture unique to our own. What many travellers might not consider is that these differences include their waste practices and policies as well. Two easy examples for travellers from Edmonton are the bottle deposit system and residential organic waste collection that are not present or look a lot different in other areas of the world – and even within our own country. You might also find a difference in acceptance of reusables at local businesses or local cuisine with less vegan or vegetarian options. It’s important to be respectful of these local ways, and remain as flexible as possible. If it’s more important to you to adhere to your customs that cannot be accommodated in certain locations, then perhaps choosing a different location is appropriate.

Travelling to a location where the waste practices are different from your own is still rewarding and fun! All it takes is a bit of patience and preparation. Planning ahead, knowing the local customs and policies will allow you to be ready for whatever differences you encounter. “Plan ahead and prepare” is also the first tip in the very popular Leave No Trace Principles for waste free travelling.

LEAVE NO TRACE PRINCIPLES FOR WASTE FREE TRAVEL

The seven Leave No Trace Principles offer guidance when enjoying the outdoors, or camping specifically. But this framework can easily be expanded to include other types of travel and recreation.

1. Plan ahead and prepare
2. Travel and camp on durable surfaces
3. Dispose of waste properly
4. Leave what you find
5. Minimise campfire impacts
6. Respect wildlife
7. Be considerate of others

Add these seven principles to your notes app, or take a quick screenshot and save it in your travel folder. The next time you make plans to travel, or need a quick refresher in the airport, you can pull out the list and ensure your trip aligns with this framework.

BLACKOUT TRAVEL ZONES

There are of course consequences for not following these principles while travelling. In fact, there are some popular holiday destinations across the world that are asking tourists to stay away, or are downright banning them because of the negative impact of waste and disrespectful travel caused by tourism and tourists. Many of these locations were forced to experience a visitor-free year during the covid lockdowns and recognised that the benefit to their natural environment outweighed the lost income. Or are working on fine-tuning that balance. Two of the most publicised locations to have grappled with this are Hawaii and Thailand. In Hawaii, the Indigenous islanders have asked tourists to stay away due to water scarcity and rising costs of living for locals. (source) The Thailand government has mandated the closures of some very popular beaches during specific months of the year to allow the natural environment time to recover. (source) They have also implemented strategies to reduce the volume of visitors while still sustaining the tourist industry in these locations.

There was a lot of research and observations completed during the covid lockdowns where all tourist locations – big or small – were suddenly devoid of people for months at a time. Environmental degradation was obvious, extensive, and reversible. Local governments and residents obviously have the final say in what they do with that incredible knowledge, but travellers play an important role. We can each prepare accordingly for visiting locations where waste is a problem, and use the Leave No Trace principles as a framework for how we interact with a destination and its residents. Consider if your priority is to visit that beach, or ensure the flourishing of an ecosystem. Many folks will choose the latter. As for those locations across the globe that now “depend on tourism” it is important that we consider why and how that happened. Often the answer involves colonialism, economic racism, and corruption. These systems still have people at the heart, and while it might seem inconsequential, our travel decisions can have a lasting impact.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND TRAVEL

Considering the bigger picture can seem daunting when all we want is a relaxing time away from our day-to-day life. But thankfully our waste free habits and choices connect to a bigger web of actions and people working toward justice in and for their own communities. It’s exciting to think that making a choice to benefit our family and honour our values can have a positive effect on someone you haven’t even met!

This article offers a few ideas to consider for travelling with respect for the environment and for people at your destination. As well as applying your waste free values to the amazing opportunity to travel and experience cultures and locations different from our own. Travel continues to be a privilege, one that is impacted by economic and racial justice alongside environmental justice.

TAKE ACTION

No matter where you are in your waste free journey, applying your values to travel can become overwhelming. There are many levels of impact to consider, and with everything happening in our world, the impact of a stress relieving holiday has become even more relevant. But now that we know better, we can make better choices while still enjoying the basic need that travel fulfils: getting out of our regular routine and exploring new sites. Here is a short list of actions you can take while planning your next vacation, ranked from low to high effort. What would you add to our list? Leave it in the comments!

Low effort:

Pack a reusable water bottle
If you need to buy supplies before you leave, choose second hand instead of buying new. Thrift stores and Buy Nothing groups are a great choice, as is borrowing from friends and family.

Mid effort:

Pack a reusable plate, bowl, and cutlery to avoid takeout containers or other unwanted single use items.
Don’t bring single use items with you, and remove any packaging from items in your suitcase to prevent putting strain on the waste system of your hosts.

High effort:

Use and buy local services at your destination, including transportation, restaurants, tour companies, etc.

Yard Waste or Yard Resource? Managing Yards in Edmonton

According to the calendar, spring began on March 20. According to our waste collection calendar, spring started on April 2, as food scraps carts can be set out every week. The next few months are busy for Edmontonians as we prepare our yards and gardens for the growing season. The City steps in to help you deal with your yard waste in a few different ways. But what do those solutions look like, and are there other options?

WHAT IS YARD WASTE AND WHAT HAPPENS TO IT?

Many people reading this article might argue that yard waste isn’t waste at all. It is a valuable resource that provides our yards and gardens with a source of nutrients.

The most basic definition of yard waste is the one that probably comes to the front of your mind when you hear the phrase. It includes such items as: branches, leaves, fallen fruit, grass, and other plant material from your garden. The City’s definition for collection does not include kitchen or animal waste, tree stumps or trunks. There are other means of disposing of those items, which we will get to later.

Yard waste is picked up twice in the spring (and twice in the fall) on a designated Monday. Download the WasteWise app or refer to your printed calendar for your neighbourhood’s dates. This separate collection of yard waste four times a year allows the city “to create clean, high-quality compost, while keeping more waste out of the landfill” (source). This compost is available for residents to pick up for free from the Ambleside and Kennedale Eco Stations starting in May.

If you choose to put your yard waste into your backyard compost bin, or have a dedicated area in your backyard to allow it to break down you can provide a welcome habitat to beneficial insects, birds, and other animals. It’s also important to remember to give those insects some extra time to wake up and embrace spring before you collect the leaves and branches for disposal (source).

WHY BOTHER SORTING OUR YARD WASTE?

Sorting our yard material into a separate stream allows for many benefits to be reaped by Edmontonians and our environment. “Landfills emit greenhouse gases from the anaerobic decomposition of biodegradable waste” (source). These greenhouse gases are a concern because they contribute to the overall warming of our planet, which in turn has a cascading effect on all of Earth’s systems, and can lead to “extreme weather, wildfires, droughts and food supply disruptions” (source) All of which has an outsized effect on us. Diverting food and yard waste prevents these harmful emissions, frees up landfill space for non-recyclable material, and extends the lifespan of our landfill.

There are added financial benefits of composting, such as reduced landfilling costs and generating income by selling the finished material (source). And when considered in the lens of a circular system, it makes no sense to throw away nutrient rich plant matter when we can compost it and continue to access those benefits, instead of locking them away in a landfill. For example, this high quality finished product is available to all Edmontonians free of charge. There are currently no size limitations on the amount of compost you can collect at the Ambleside and Kennedale Eco Stations. The financial incentive isn’t just for municipalities and businesses either. By using compost created by yard waste, you won’t have to buy expensive fertilizers or soil additives for your own yard or garden.

HOW TO SORT OUR YARD WASTE

Sorting your yard waste properly for collection takes a bit of time, but it’s well worth the effort. It’s important that we sort our yard waste appropriately because it is collected by hand. Safety of the great humans who do our waste collection must be kept top of mind. The City has a great list of tips here to help you sort your yard waste properly if you are putting it out for spring collection. See-through plastic or double-ply paper bags are the only types of bags accepted. For sticks and branches, they must be tied in bundles less than 1.2 metres and 0.75 metres in diameter. Please ensure that everything is secured tightly. There is no bag or bundle limit.

If you have some of those items mentioned above that cannot go in the yard waste collection – kitchen waste, tree stumps – there are still alternatives for safe disposal. Tree stumps and trunks can be disposed of at any Edmonton Eco Station throughout the season. And Eco Stations always accept residential yard waste if you don’t want to wait for your collection day – here is a list of locations. Animal waste and kitchen waste should go into your food scraps cart (unless otherwise indicated). And general yard waste items can go into your food scraps cart at any point during the season, as long as it fits those collection guidelines (size, for example). If placed in your food scraps cart, it will only be collected on normal collection days.

HOW DOES EDMONTON COMPARE TO OTHER MUNICIPALITIES

Edmonton’s current solution to yard waste works for us now. But are there better ideas out there? We looked at how other municipalities in Canada manage yard waste, and how Edmonton’s process compares. Our rival neighbour to the south has a similar system to ours, making use of both a food scraps cart and bags, however Calgary reserves the right to not collect all the bags you have left out if it is excessive (source). Red Deer once again has a similar system to Edmonton, however, they do not allow plastic bags as they are not compostable (source). The Government of Alberta Yard Waste Diversion Committee’s recommendations for reducing leaf and yard waste in Alberta might explain a lot of the similarities in the yard waste collection within Alberta municipalities. Size, climate, and current waste management systems also play a large role. Regina does not have curbside organics collection, so they instead operate a yard waste depot that is open spring through fall where residents can drop off leaves free of charge (source). Even farther east, we have Halifax where there are additional green cart pickup days starting in July (source). Residents can leave yard waste like leaves and branches out on collection day, but the City will not collect grass clippings and instead recommends you grasscycle those while mowing. Finally, we looked at Vancouver, whose “seasonal leaf collection program” runs from autumn into January. Otherwise you can put leaves into your Green Bin year round (source).

With this cursory exploration, we see that Edmonton is not an outlier in how our city manages the yard waste generated by residential households. While there is probably more we could be doing – both as a city and as residents – we have at least taken the important step in addressing the importance of sorting and separately managing our yard waste. Who knows what the future will bring with new technologies, new knowledge, citizen-led action paving the way for better solutions.

LET’S KEEP TALKING

We have all seen the house with two dozen orange plastic bags at the end of their driveway in the spring. Or the black bin overflowing with grass clippings. Why might people not put their yard waste into their food scraps cart? It is often a lack of knowledge or information about the yard waste program in edmonton. Many people might experience other barriers to adding their yard waste to their food scraps cart, such as mobility or accessibility concerns while navigating heavy materials up into the bin. We must strive to understand the barriers to folks not composting their yard waste, or not leaving their grass clippings on their lawn after mowing so we can continue the education in the right direction and get more people on board with this valued program. Beyond the education component is a culture shift. People must not only understand the importance of composting these materials, but also buy into a market for designing lower waste yardscapes and purchasing the products that are the end result of a yard waste compost program (source).

It’s important that we all start thinking of yard waste not only as a part of a waste cycle, but as a resource as well. So that “the negative environmental impacts of its disposal in landfills will be reduced or eliminated” (source). The more we talk with our neighbours and community about our yard waste, the more we can normalize alternatives to lawns and monocultures.

TAKE ACTION

We can all do our parts in ensuring that natural materials from our yards are sorted properly for pickup from the City of Edmonton. But here are some ideas if you want to make better use of this excellent resource!

Low effort:

Leave your grass clippings in place after you mow (More info on grasscycling here)
Use the high quality compost produced by the City from our yard waste

Mid effort:

Add your yard waste to your own backyard compost bin or to a separate spot in your yard to break down on its own and provide habitat to birds and bugs

Max effort:

Build a hugelkultur bed using twigs and branches
Change the landscaping design of your yard to feature less grass and more native species

What To Know About The New Waste Bylaw

Edmonton’s City Council unanimously passed a bylaw in February 2023 that will have a large impact on how our city manages their waste. This post is going to focus on two main parts of that bylaw: communal collections and bin liners.

Many apartment dwellers have been asking for this since the first green cart hit the curb many years ago saying, “when will it be our turn?” Starting in fall 2023 and continuing until 2027 their turn is here. Impacting approximately 167,000 households, multi-family dwellings will now be included in the organics collection program that single family homes have been using since 2021. “Increasing the separate collection of food scraps and recyclables will help keep more waste out of the landfill and reduce emissions,” the city said in a news release. There was a 30% reduction of waste in the garbage stream after the City completed its switch to the current system for single-family residential. It is unclear what their estimates are for the drop once the multi-family program is in action, but we could see another significant drop in the non-organic waste stream. While the exact logistics of this collection strategy remain to be seen, the City promises to work with building owners to ensure the collection can be accommodated. Apartment and condo dwellers can look forward to their own food scraps collection in the months and years to come.

In terms of bin liners, the city previously required compostable liners labeled BPI or BNQ-certified. This bylaw now permits any type of bin liner to be used in the green cart, of any material. According to the City, the compostable bag liners folks may have previously been using were being thrown into the garbage after food scraps were emptied. Our facility in Edmonton cannot completely compost the certified compostable bags, so if the bags weren’t removed they would contaminate the finished compost material with microplastics and potentially toxic chemicals. Compostable plastics are largely a myth. Compostable plastics are also known as bio-plastics or biodegradable plastic. Each of these are composed of different base materials, or have different properties, and they are scientifically not interchangeable (source). The confusion between the three as far as the general public is concerned, and the “greenwashing” that comes into play in their existence creates problems for composting initiatives like ours in Edmonton. The false promises of compostable plastics also hide a heavy carbon footprint and toxic chemicals (source), both of which negate the benefit of an organics program. When makers of BPI compostable bags advertise that they can break down in municipal composting facilities, they don’t necessarily mean your municipality’s facility. Most of these types of plastics can only break down in a high heat industrial composting facility, far hotter than those which most cities or towns operate.

Under the previous bylaw, and continuing under the new one, liners made from paper are composted alongside the contents of the green bin. Moving forward, liners made of any other material of bag will be removed from the organics waste stream and put in with the general landfill waste. The best solution is to skip liners completely, but if you feel you must use one, try and reuse a bag you already have – in paper if possible – before buying new, single-use plastic bags. The City of Edmonton has already demonstrated their focus on reducing single-use plastics in food service with Bylaw 20117, set to take effect this July (source). It would be a significant step for them to amend the Single-Use Item Reduction Bylaw to require residents to forgo plastic liners, but we know that Edmontonians are still adjusting to the green carts program. Perhaps we can look forward to that addition in the future. For now, we can continue educating friends and family on the merits of going bagless, or help them find creative ways to use (limited) paper or cardboard to line their bins!

Many articles that present this new bylaw mention the City of Edmonton’s climate goals, but what are those goals specifically and how do these new measures – bin liners, communal composting, and single use item reduction – fit into those goals? For one, the City aims to be carbon neutral by 2050, and yet is already set to blow past that timeline (source). A variety of environmental programs are guided by EcoVision “the city’s vision for environmental sustainability” (source) and The Way We Green, which is Edmonton’s environmental strategic plan. Specifically, the new bylaw focuses on the concern that the “residential sector is responsible for about 40% of all solid waste generated in Edmonton” (source), and addresses how to reduce waste and also divert it from going to landfill.

The city declared a climate emergency 3 years ago (source), and has set ambitious goals and targets to reflect this status. How do you see these changes to our waste collection impacting our mitigation or adaptation to the climate emergency? How are these actions going to help Edmonton and Edmontonians get through this emergency? We may not have the answers to these questions today, but they provide some “food for thought”, and can guide our response to the new bylaw and its impact on our day-to-day lives.

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

Food scraps collection coming to Edmonton apartments and condos (Global News)

Edmonton apartments and condos to have separate food scraps collection (CTV News)

Food waste: what, why and how to stop it (Waste Free Edmonton)

City of Edmonton:

Bylaw 20363

Edmonton’s Strategic Vision – 2019 to 2028

Community Energy Transition Strategy

Single Use Items

Change for Climate

The Way We Green Speaker Series

Biodegradable Plastic Problems (BioPak)The False Promise Of Bioplastics and Compostable Plastics (Beyond Plastics)

December 14, 2022December 14, 2022

Five Tips to Make Your Holiday Dinner Waste Free

‘Tis the season to make merry with friends and family. And food is such an important part of many holidays this time of year. Perhaps your holiday plans include hosting or co-hosting a festive meal at your home. It can be difficult to have a perfect waste-free event, but we can try with these five tips to make your holiday dinner waste free.

Say NO to plastic cutlery and disposable plates and YES to a “Party Pack”. What is a ”Party Pack” you ask? It’s a separate set of proper dishes – including cutlery, cups, and fabric napkins – you can use when you’re serving more than the usual number of folks. This avoids the need to use disposable tableware, and it looks better as well!
Don’t be afraid to send leftovers home with your guests! Ask them to bring reusable food containers to the party, or dig through your recyclables bin and reuse those peanut butter jars you’ve been saving for collection day.
If your guests insist on bringing a “host gift”, ask for an ingredient in the evening’s meal. Dessert or buns is always an easy one. But if the guest is a whiz in the kitchen, you could also ask them to arrive early and help you with the cooking or setting the table. Spending a little extra time together is a bonus, and it’s always appreciated to get extra help in the kitchen.
When grocery shopping for ingredients, try to minimize single use plastics and food waste. If you make a plan – including choosing recipes – and write a list before you head out shopping, there is a smaller chance that you will waste ingredients either because you purchased too much or you purchased something you don’t need. This also gives you a chance to choose ingredients with less packaging, like fresh produce or refillable items.
Serve a vegetarian or vegan meal. Eating less meat is one of the top ways a change in your diet can help combat the climate crisis (source). There are a lot of really popular and delicious – and easy – vegan recipes online these days that will please all of your guests.

A birthday party kit including plates, utensils, and napkins – all waste free!

If holiday values for you means gathering with friends and family, you can impart some of your climate and waste free values to them at the same time. With a little creativity and time you can ensure the meal is low waste, or waste free. It’s the time spent together that is the most important part anyway.

November 16, 2022November 16, 2022

Single-Use Plastics In The Fashion Industry

The recent approval of the Single-Use Item Reduction Bylaw in Edmonton got us thinking about single-use plastics in the fashion industry. This topic certainly applies to textiles, from the little plastic on garment hang tags, plastic packaging of items bought online, to garments thrown out after one use.

That’s right – even our clothing can be considered single-use. A report from Censuswide stated that UK residents bought an estimated 50 million clothing items for one-time use at festivals, holidays, and weddings in summer 2019 [1]. While this may not mean that the item was sent to landfill after one wear, many fast fashion items are of such poor quality that they aren’t meant to withstand multiple wears or laundering cycles.

In addition, Fibre2Fashion states on their website that plastic packaging used in shipping garments from manufacturers to retailers is sometimes forgotten when talking about sustainable fashion [2]. Considering over 100 billion garments are made annually, we can assume that billions of plastic bags are being used to transport these items, often individually wrapped, from factory to store.

Fortunately, some brands are turning to plastic free garment tags and packaging to reduce the amount of plastic waste going to landfill after purchasing an item in store or online. As Good On You explains on their website [3], options such as compostable, recyclable or returnable packaging are being used at companies like Maggie Marilyn, Lanius, and Mud Jeans, respectively.

We look forward to seeing how future bylaws in Edmonton and beyond can address the single-use mindset of the fashion industry.

November 9, 2022November 8, 2022

Regenerated or Manmade Cellulosic Fibres (MMCFs)

Now that we’ve covered the main natural fibre types, it’s time to get into manufactured fibres. Regenerated cellulosic fibres (aka manmade cellulosics or MMCFs) are a bit of a hybrid between natural and synthetic fibres, where they are manufactured from naturally occurring polymers. Viscose rayon, the first MMCF, was invented in the late 1800s and was initially branded as synthetic silk – in fact these days some sellers still brand it as “vegan silk”, which it really bears no resemblance to beyond the very superficial.

In Canada, “rayon” is a bit of an umbrella term that encompasses most MMCFs [1], but most people are referring to viscose when talking about rayon. MMCFs account for ~5-6% of the global fibre market [2,3] and include viscose, acetate, lyocell, modal, and cupro. Viscose is by far the most popular of these fibres, representing 80% of this volume.

MMCFs are primarily produced from wood pulp, where the pulp is dissolved, sometimes modified, and regenerated into cellulose again; the different names for these fibres come from the different processing conditions and chemicals used for each [3,4].

Pros:

Feels soft next to skin, with a nice drape
Dyes very easily
Generally lower cost

Cons:

Weak fibres, and weaker when wet
Vulnerable to fuzzing, or fibrillation (see photo)
Popular subjects for greenwashing (spoiler alert: bamboo!)

MMCFs are primarily made from wood pulp, with less than 1% currently being made from recycled or alternative feedstocks [5]. One concern is the sourcing materials from old growth or endangered forests. To address this, more manufacturers are using Forest Stewardship International and/or PEFC-certified fibres, around 55-60% of them as of 2020 [5]. The global nonprofit Canopy Planet also conduct their CanopyStyle audits of major MMCF manufacturers as a third party verification process for apparel brands and retailers to ensure the products they sell have been made from responsibly sourced raw materials [6]. As of 2020, it is now possible for brands to have FSC labels on their certified products, so keep an eye out for those!

On the responsible chemistry and manufacturing side of things, Blue Sign Technologies and ZDHC have created guidelines for MMCFs production, including requirements for wastewater and air emissions testing. Carbon disulphide, which is used in viscose and modal production as a solvent, is toxic and can cause serious health problems [7]. Since it is currently required for the production of these fibres, ZDHC haven’t added it to their restricted substances list, but have instead recommended more guidelines surrounding its responsible use, recovery, and eventual disposal [8].

Viscose is becoming increasingly common and many people still love to wear it. As always, buying used clothing is best but when you have to buy something new, keep an eye out for a more responsibly-produced viscose such as EcoVero or similar, as well as any information from the organizations mentioned above.

Textiles labeled as “bamboo” is a greenwashing tactic we still see EVERYWHERE, even though government organizations such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Canadian Competition Bureau are actively working to keep it from happening [9,10].

Bamboo is a bast (stem) fibre. If collected from the plant as linen is, bamboo fabric would feel rough, like burlap. The vast majority of the products labelled as “bamboo” on the market right now are actually viscose rayon made *from* bamboo. The same viscose that uses carbon disulphide in its production, as we discussed in our last MMCF post. The use of bamboo as a source material leads many retailers to make unsubstantiated claims about the performance of the fabric, based on the (alleged) natural properties of bamboo, such as antibacterial action [11]. Bamboo viscose really bears no resemblance to the original fibre aside from being made of cellulose, and so any claims about its natural properties are greenwashing.

Another popular marketing tactic for bamboo-derived products, not just textiles, is about how sustainable it is because it grows so quickly. Like any crop, bamboo can be grown sustainably or unsustainably. Due to its popularity, there are some areas where natural forests are being cleared to make way for bamboo plantations, which is ecologically inappropriate [12]. Canopy Planet describes bamboo as a “middle of the road” MMCF feedstock, with flax and recycled pulp being less impactful. They say that bamboo can be a strong alternative to viscose or paper made from Ancient and Endangered Forests, as long as their seven criteria are met. See the link below [12] to read about those seven criteria.

Recycling is a relatively new area for MMCFs and a lot of R&D is still happening right now. Recycled MMCFs currently make up approx. 0.4% of all MMCFs used in 2020 [13]. Canopy Planet estimates that by recycling just 25% each of all pre/post-consumer cotton and MMCF waste, those sources could replace all use of virgin wood pulp [14].

In 2020, Fashion For Good launched their “Full Circle Textiles Project: Scaling Innovations in Cellulosic Recycling” in partnership with leading MMCF recycling companies to investigate scaling up their technologies [15]. These companies are Evrnu, Infinited Fiber, Phoenxt, Renewcell, and Circ.

The feedstocks used for these MMCFs can include used textiles, old newspapers, cotton linter (a byproduct of cotton processing), and other cellulosic (plant-derived) materials. One study from 2016 showed that the resulting material has comparable mechanical properties to standard lyocell fibres, which is encouraging [16].

One challenge here, as in all textile recycling processes, is how to deal with blends. So many fabrics, including MMCFs, are blended materials which makes separation difficult. We’re looking forward to seeing the results of the cellulosic recycling scale-up project to see how these companies deal with that particular challenge!

References:

https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/01249.html
https://textileexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Textile-Exchange_Preferred-Fiber-and-Materials-Market-Report_2021.pdf
Kadolph, S.J. (2011). Textiles. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Chen, J. “Synthetic textile fibers: regenerated cellulose fibers.” Textiles and fashion. Woodhead Publishing, 2015. 79-95.
https://textileexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Textile-Exchange_Preferred-Fiber-and-Materials-Market-Report_2021.pdf
https://canopyplanet.org/resources/canopystyleaudit/
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/carbon-disulfide/default.html
https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5c4065f2d6b53e08a1b03de7/5ea9710549690bdafe9ef6cd_ZDHC_MMCF%20Guidelines_V1.0_APR2020.pdf
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain-language/alt172-how-avoid-bamboozling-your-customers.pdf
https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/03021.html
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/bamboo-fabrics
https://canopyplanet.org/solutions/next-generation-solutions/canopys-bamboo-position/
https://textileexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Textile-Exchange_Preferred-Fiber-and-Materials-Market-Report_2021.pdf
https://canopyplanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/SURVIVAL-Next-Gen-Pathway.pdf
https://fashionforgood.com/our_news/a-new-frontier-in-chemical-recycling/
Haule, L.V., C.M. Carr, and M. Rigout. ‘Preparation and Physical Properties of Regenerated Cellulose Fibres from Cotton Waste Garments’. Journal of Cleaner Production 112 (January 2016): 4445–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.086.

July 26, 2022July 26, 2022

Speaking About Silk

Background

It’s time to talk about silk! Silk is a luxurious fibre mainly produced in China and India, and represents a tiny fraction of the world fibre market. Silk is a protein fibre made by caterpillars via modified salivary glands – so we guess you could call it worm spit! The fibre is triangular, and is made of a protein called fibroin. It also has an outer “coating” called sericin which acts like a glue to hold the cocoon together.

The vast majority of silk comes from one species of moth, Bombyx mori, which has been bred over thousands of years. Silk is the only naturally occurring filament fibre, where one cocoon can contain fibres up to 1 km long! In order to collect this silk, the insect is euthanized before the adult is able to emerge from the cocoon and break the fibres. The cocoons are then reeled (unwound) and combined with the filaments of other cocoons to create a yarn.

Wild or Tussah silk comes from numerous other species of moth, and is normally harvested after the adult leaves the cocoon. This results in a slubby, more textured fabric.

Pros:

Shiny and lustrous thanks to its shape
Cool feeling against the skin
Stronger than other protein fibres and biocompatible, which makes it popular for medical textiles

Cons:

Delicate, difficult to launder properly (can be damaged by detergents)
Very expensive
Having to kill the insect to reel the cocoon properly. It can take 3000 silkworms to make 1 kg of finished material.

Innovations

Silk is a small percentage of the global fibre market and at present isn’t a significant source of textile waste. BUT. Some really neat developments are happening in the world of silk that we’d love to share with you!

Why is silk important? As mentioned it’s a popular research material for medical textiles such as tissue scaffolds, sutures, and films/patches for drug delivery [3], due to its biodegradability and compatibility with the human body. It also represents a promising future where high performance fibres can be manufactured with biological materials, allowing us to decouple fibre production and petrochemicals.

The use of synthetic biology to produce artificial silk fibres has been a popular research topic since the 90s, but has really taken off in the last decade. The two main silks being produced are that of Bombyx mori, the species we mentioned last week, and spider silk. Spider silk is especially popular due to its amazing mechanical properties, particularly its toughness (strength and stretch). Many companies have been founded to produce these fibres at scale, including Spiber Inc., Bolt Threads, and Kraig Biocraft Laboratories to name a few, and they have been collaborating with brands such as The North Face and Stella McCartney on special projects [4, 5].

The method of manufacture in these cases often involves genetic manipulation, especially where spider silk is involved, as rearing spiders for large-scale production is not feasible (they don’t produce large amounts of silk and tend to eat each other). Techniques may involve inserting spider silk genes into silkworms and collecting the silk conventionally, or using recombinant DNA and bacteria or yeast to produce silk proteins [3, 6].

Are you convinced yet that silk is one of the more interesting fibres out there? If not, let us know!

References:

Kadolph, S.J. (2011). Textiles. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Fritz, Anne and Cant, Jennifer (1986). Consumer Textiles. Oxford University Press Australia
Holland, C., Numata, K., Rnjak-Kovacina, J., & Seib, F. P. (2019). The biomedical use of silk: past, present, future. Advanced healthcare materials, 8(1), 1800465. https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.201800465
https://spiber.inc/en/tnfsp/mp/
https://boltthreads.com/2017/07/20/stella-mccartney-and-bolt-threads-announce-a-new-partnership-focused-on-sustainable-fashion-and-luxury-materials-development/
Poddar, H., Breitling, R., & Takano, E. (2020). Towards engineering and production of artificial spider silk using tools of synthetic biology. Engineering Biology, 4(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1049/enb.2019.0017

June 28, 2022June 28, 2022

Can You Compost Cotton Blend Fabrics?

Can you compost cotton blend fabrics? As with many questions around textile sustainability, the answer to this question is: it depends. While there are studies on the biodegradability of textiles (i.e. the ability to degrade or break down), less research has studied the compostability of textile products, which refers to the degradation of organic material specifically. Studies related to the biodegradation of textiles have found that both natural and synthetic fibres will degrade by microorganisms such as bacteria or fungi [1]. However, the breakdown of synthetic fibres can lead to microplastic/microfibre pollution, while natural fibres treated with certain dyes, chemicals, or finishes can slow down their rate of degradation [2]. These chemicals can also leach out of textiles as they degrade which could contaminate soil. Look for items with certifications like GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard), OCS (Organic Content Standard), and bluesign to avoid these types of harmful substances.

Unfortunately, most textile items contain blended fibres such as cotton/polyester t-shirts, wool/acrylic sweaters, or cotton/polyester/spandex jeans, and use polyester thread for sewing. So, if you’re planning to add clothing or textile items to your compost, look for organic, natural materials and cut out seams if you want to avoid synthetics entirely. If your clothing or textile item is blended with synthetic fibres (e.g., polyester, spandex, acrylic), then it’s best to avoid composting these items since it may be difficult to remove these synthetic fibres or threads from your compost heap [3].

Rana, S., Pichandi, S., Parveen, S., Fangueiro, R. (2014). Biodegradation Studies of Textiles and Clothing Products. In: Muthu, S. (eds) Roadmap to Sustainable Textiles and Clothing. Textile Science and Clothing Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-110-7_4
Athey, S. N., Adams, J. K., Erdle, L. M., Jantunen, L. M., Helm, P. A., Finkelstein, S. A., & Diamond, M. L. (2020). The widespread environmental footprint of indigo denim microfibers from blue jeans. Environmental Science & Technology Letters, 7(11), 840-847. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00498
https://www.compostthis.co.uk/old-clothes