Ellen MacArthur fashion lead says reliance on polyester must reduce
The lead person on the Make Fashion Circular programme at campaign group the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Francois Souchet, has called on clothing brands, manufacturers and fabric suppliers to create materials that will release as few microfibres as possible.
Mr Souchet told London-based newspaper The Guardian that innovation on the material side would be a much better solution than filters at wastewater treatment plants. He said that the microfibres are so small that the filters required to collect them would, necessarily, slow the flow of wastewater so much it would make plants unsustainable.
He also questioned the benefits of recycled polyester. He added that the plastic in bottles can be recycled into more plastic for bottles time and time again, but that using today’s mechanical recycling methods to transform this plastic into recycled polyester is to remove the material from that closed loop and the garments you make from it “are no longer recyclable”, he said.
He insisted that what’s required is clothing that we can wear for long enough to break what he described as a cycle of over-production and over-consumption. “Our reliance on polyester needs to be reduced,” he said.
