A Natural Fibre World?
If synthetics vanished overnight, could we clothe the world using natural fibres?
Written by Dave Giles-Kaye
I’ve often heard people say that we can’t grow enough natural fibre (e.g. wool and cotton) to clothe the world and that’s why we need synthetic fibres (e.g. polyester and acrylic). I thought I’d check this out.
To start with I wanted to find out how much of all kinds of fibre are produced or grown globally every year. I turned to DNFI.org [1] (Discover Natural Fibres Initiative) who reported that in 2018 this figure was 110 million tonnes and that around 71% of this is synthetic and 29% natural.
Then I checked on how much of this fibre ends up as clothes and shoes. Global Fashion Agenda [2] in their 2017 Pulse of the Industry report stated that it is just over half of this amount, or 62 million tonnes. This equates to every person on the planet buying on average 13 garments and 2 pairs of shoes every year [3], with the average American consumer buying a staggering 68 garments per year [4].
So, if we diverted all the world’s natural fibre to make clothes and shoes, could we produce enough? Well, no. At the moment we only produce 32 million tonnes of natural fibres, well short of the 62 million needed to make everything at the current levels of production.
How about the other side of the equation then? What if we reduced the amount of clothes and shoes we bought by 50%, down to equal the amount of natural fibre the world currently produces. This means that on a global average we’d all need to buy 7 or 8 fewer items than the 15 outlined above. The heavy lifting though would clearly need to be done in countries like the US, UK and Australia where consumption is vastly higher.
Is this possible? I think it is, but it will take some big changes of habit. We will need to buy things that last and that we will like for longer. Also, we’ll need to learn how to mend our clothes and be willing to look for pre-worn garments before buying something new.
For future pondering:
How can we grow more fibre? What would this mean for food production?
What would broader uptake of regenerative farming practices mean for the equation?
What is the industry doing to recycle natural fibres? Keeping natural fibres ‘in the loop’ expands the amount of natural fibre available for use in the market.
What about using recycled synthetic fibres, doesn’t this help? What are the long term impacts of keeping synthetic fibres in use?
