Sustainable Fibers for a Better Future | Knitting

✓Let the Interweave Knits Winter 2024 issue transport you to a winter wonderland of cozy knits! This remarkable edition features 14 extraordinary projects to immerse yourself in the uniqueness of specially crafted yarns.

Amid growing concerns about the global textile industry’s impact on humans and the environment, innovative yarn companies are working to provide more sustainable fiber options for big brands and individual crafters.

As I scroll through projects on Ravelry, a lace shawl catches my eye. The garment’s shape, pearly oyster color, and twining organic motif make it feel timeless; its silky drape levels it up to luxe. You’d never know this shawl was actually made from wasted cow’s milk.

Bellatrista’s Milk Yarn spun from milk protein — Bellatrista’s Milk Yarn is spun from milk protein. Photo courtesy of Bellatrista.

Milk is just one of many unexpected raw materials we can use to create more sustainable yarns for the global textile and fibrecraft industries. A recent New York Times story, “Fabrics from Your Fridge,” identifies bamboo, bananas, oranges, seaweed, and soybeans as feedstocks for fabrics. Technical gear company Patagonia uses textiles made of everything from discarded fishing nets to wood pulp. Allbirds, a brand known for its minimalist Merino wool sneakers, now sells T-shirts made from crab shells. Startups such as NatureWorks and AlgiKnit polymerize corn and kelp, respectively, into spinnable performance fibers.

Why the Future Needs New Fibers

These newfangled fibers make for great PR, but they haven’t yet fully penetrated the textile or craft industries. This leaves consumers with limited choices for buying—or making—truly sustainable garments. Alternative fibers could meaningfully reduce the outsized impact of textile production and create better choices for fiber enthusiasts. We need to act quickly, however, to prevent further damage to the environment.

“We really need to act fast if we’re going to curb, at minimum, and negate, in an ideal world, the drastic negative ramifications caused by the production and consumption of the textiles we so heavily rely on,” says Tessa Callaghan, co-founder and CEO of AlgiKnit.

Problems with Traditional Fibers

A report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation reveals grim statistics: The textile industry uses 98 million tons of nonrenewable resources each year. Dyeing and treating textiles accounts for 20% of all water pollution. 63% of clothing in 2015 was made from virgin plastic and shed half a million tons of microfiber—tiny plastic filaments—into the world’s oceans. Although fast fashion has radically increased the scale of environmental damage caused by the textile trade, many problematic practices predate its meteoritic rise over the past few decades.

Unless they are recycled, plastic fibers like acrylic, polyester, and nylon are made from fossil fuels. Chemically processing wool and silk presents health hazards to workers. Meanwhile, land use and animals’ methane-gas emissions and waste raise environmental concerns.

And then there is cotton. In 2015, The Guardian reported that “the global average water footprint for one kilogram of cotton is 10,000 litres.” Conventionally grown cotton still uses 6.4% of the world’s pesticides despite declines in pesticide use, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The fiber also continues to be associated with forced labor in various parts of the world. This includes the United States, where incarcerated people provide unpaid labor to produce it—a troubling modern-day parallel to antebellum enslavement.

The Yarn Industry and the Environment

While crafters’ overall environmental impact is miniscule compared with that of the textile trade, the two are entangled. Choices made within textile manufacturing impact what we crafters can buy—and make many of us unknowingly complicit in environmental degradation.

“On some level the (large-scale) craft industry and the textile industry share the same supply streams until the final stages,” Dale Washburn, founder of yarn company Bellatrista, says in an email. “That is, the production of the raw fiber, the large-scale dyeing, etc. are indistinguishable. They only really diverge when the finished fiber/thread is spun into yarn or sent to be woven into cloth and sewn into garments. So, maybe the craft yarn industry avoids many of the issues associated with the garment industry, but the raw materials and the inputs are largely the same.”

Weighing Concerns to Reduce Impact

This knowledge led Washburn to rethink his business plan and product line. Cotton gives milk yarn a better hand, but “there’s no way I’m touching cotton right now,” says Washburn, citing human rights concerns. The environmental impact of industrial dyeing convinced him to start coloring his own yarns to “control what type of dyes we’re using, how much water we’re using [and] know where the effluent is going.”

Scaling this process beyond small batches requires significant investments in everything from machinery to R&D, if AlgiKnit is any indication. Meeting industrial fiber demand was always part of Callaghan’s business plan but developing a product that is sustainable at every stage has taken five years.

“We are creating products that aren’t just focused on a single metric,” says Callaghan. “From water usage to carbon emissions . . .to toxic chemical usage and freshwater consumption, we are drastically decreasing the impact at each one of these stages. This is something that we have yet to see in other commercially available materials. It is very easy to focus on one of them and showcase that you’re eliminating it. But usually that comes at the cost of another.”

The History of “Futuristic” Fibers

Bio-based fibers like AlgiKnit may seem futuristic but they actually have a long history. In 1884, Hilaire de Chardonnet pioneered the process for rayon, a fiber composed of chemically treated cellulose pulp. It was later marketed as “artificial silk” and viscose. Rayon, and rayon derivatives Lyocell and bamboo, are prized by fashion designers and crafters for their breathability and drape. NatureWorks drew on the 1920s-era work of American chemist Wallace Carothers to create Ingeo, clear plastic pellets sustainably derived from corn sugar. They can be turned into everything from compostable coffee capsules to “very nice apparel,” says marketing manager Leah Ford.

AlgiKnit kelp for bio-based fibers — AlgiKnit uses materials such as kelp to create bio-based fibers. Photo courtesy of AlgiKnit.

Handknitting yarn brands draw on similar processes. Dutch artist and materials researcher Nienke Hoogvliet has partnered with scientists to make seaweed-based yarn using a related low-impact chemical process. Canadian yarn company Handmaiden Fine Yarn blends SeaCell, also made from seaweed, with silk to make its signature handknitting yarns. Bellatrista’s fingering-weight Milk Yarn—the one used in the shawl mentioned at the beginning of the article—is spun from casein proteins extracted from dehydrated dairy milk that wasn’t fit for consumption. Italians developed the process in the 1930s to offset wartime wool shortages, says Washburn.

Alternative Fibers and the Yarn Industry

Big yarn brands seem reluctant to produce alternative yarns for the craft market, and local yarn shops aren’t necessarily interested in stocking them. Ingeo appeared in a variety of commercial yarns that Ravelry now lists as “discontinued.” When I reached out to Knitting Fever to ask why the U.S. distributor stopped carrying milk and soy yarn, the representative guessed that consumers prefer machine washable yarns and might not be “as interested in alternative fibers since the strength, hand, and quality can vary so drastically.” Alternative fibers can present a steeper learning curve for new knitters and crocheters.

SeaCell “makes [silk] a bit easier to work with, increases drape and makes it cooler to wear,” says Jana Dempsey, who owns Handmaiden Fine Yarn. But it can also “pill under abrasion,” making it ill-suited for some garments. Unlike wool, Bellatrista’s milk and peppermint yarns “have no memory,” says Washburn. “If you made yourself a very simple sweater out of any of them, by the end of the season, it would be a sweater dress. You need to use a stitch or a construction method or seaming that’ll really help lock in the shape.”

These unique characteristics may make alternative fibers a tough sell for local yarn-shop owners. LYS owners aren’t, Washburn finds, particularly receptive to the sustainability pitch.

Handmaiden Fine Yarn's Sea Silk yarn — Sea Silk yarn from Handmaiden Fine yarn is a blend of silk and SeaCell, a fiber made from seaweed. Photo courtesy of Handmaiden Fine Yarn.

Successes in the Industry

Online direct-to-consumer sales allow Washburn to connect with superniche markets, such as a baby-sling weaving business. “There’s a whole baby-wearing movement,” he says—who are scouring the internet for yarns such as his. Weavers are also a key market for soy yarn and a linen-like thread spun from the bast of banana plants. “It’s kind of scratchy to knit with, whereas it is great for housewares and stuff, and the weavers love it,” Washburn says.

There is one sustainable fiber that has been taking off for fast fashion brands and yarn companies alike: fiber and fabric recycled from garment-industry waste. We Are Knitters and Wool and the Gang are two companies that sell kits with fashion-forward patterns featuring sustainable yarn. “We have quite a few recycled yarns,” Alberto Bravo, who is with We Are Knitters, says in a WhatsApp message. Their The Fabric Yarn is made from leftover T-shirts, and The Recycled Yarn is made from denim waste. “The most exciting part is to know you’re giving a second life to these materials that otherwise would be wasted for nothing. To contribute to a more environmentally friendly industry, even if it’s in a very small amount, is always satisfying. It’s part of our #zerowaste mentality.”

Moving Toward Progress

Bravo believes that making your own clothes can make people more attuned to the human and environmental toll exacted by the garment industry. “When you knit and make your own clothes, you realize the amount of time and effort that is needed to create a garment,” he says. “When you then go to one of the big stores and see that a sweater costs $20 or $30, you really need to ask yourself, ‘How is that even possible? What materials are they using? What salary [are] those workers [paid]? How is it possible that it is so cheap?’”

Nienke Hoogvliet’s “SEA ME” hand-knotted rug from seaweed yarn and discarded fishing net — Artist Nienke Hoogvliet’s piece “SEA ME” uses seaweed yarn and a discarded fishing net to create a hand-knotted rug. Photos by Femke Poort.

It’s uncomfortable to ask questions about ready-made clothes in our closets and yarn in our stashes. It’s easy to feel guilty about that ruby-red cut-rate acrylic or the mystery cotton of unknown origins. But once I knew better, I also knew I could do better. It’s not about self-judgment, but about feeling empowered to make better choices moving forward.

“Nobody is able to revolutionize the world in a silo,” says Callaghan. “And so we strive to work together . . . to foster collaboration and also support other innovators and materials. Because for us to have this drastic and fast-acting impact, diversification is key in the way that we’re thinking and the materials that we’re creating and in the solutions that we’re all working to provide.”

As crafters, we will never be able to make up for the excesses of the textile industry. However, we can raise awareness and work toward change in our smaller spheres—one shawl at a time.

RUTH TERRY is an American freelancer and avid crafter who writes about race and identity, craft culture, and travel. She lives in Istanbul.