Sustainability Series: Acrylic yarn

Acrylic yarn is perhaps the mostly widely available fibre on the market today. It’s generally affordable, durable and easy to care for making it the fibre of choice for many. It’s a great choice for beginner crafters as it sits on needles nicely and if you need to frog it, it’s not a chore. But the properties which make it a good yarn also make it a pollutant. It’s persistent in the environment (meaning it takes a long time to break down) and it sheds microplastics which accumulate in soils and aquatic environments. The scary thing is now microplastics are ubiquitous in the environment and can be found in the food we eat (Cauwenberghe and Janssen, 2014), in sediments (Yao et al, 2019) meaning eventually there will be plastic markers in rock (Trinastic, 2015) and a plastic bag has even been found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench (info here).

As a community which is centred around curating slow fashion in a meaningful and sustainable way, it’s important that we become more familiar with the yarns we use. Even as an environmental scientist and an avid crafter, I knew very little about acrylic yarn other than ‘it’s plastic’. So, prepare yourself for some yarn science (coined by Sophie from @knit.purl.girl) and enjoy the confidence knowledge can give you when you next choose some yarn.

What is acrylic yarn?

Acrylic fibres are made from synthetic polymers (i.e. plastics) derived from fossil fuels. The basic building block of these polymers is acryonile (figure 1) and it’s persistence in the environment can be attributed to the double and triple carbon-carbon and carbon-nitrogen bonds. There are various ways of producing acrylic fibres, many of them using either hydrogen cyanide or propylene and ammonia and require high temperatures and are therefore energy intensive. Acryonile can be spun into fibres using organic solvents (which require specialist disposal), metallic salts or hot air.

Figure 1. The Acryonile monomer - consider a monomer as a single stitch and a polymer as a row of knitting.

The qualities of acrylic fibres which makes them so useful makes their disposal difficult – they’re wear resistant, have strong resistance to sunlight, are resistant to biological and chemical agents meaning they do not easily undergo (bio)degradation and take a very long time to breakdown. The exact time it takes for this to occur will depend upon environmental conditions (temperature, pressure, moisture for example) and the exact structure of the plastic fibre and it’s hard to find a definitive answer because there isn’t one.

Acrylic yarn as a source of microplastics

Microplastics are a significant source of pollutant in both marine and terrestrial environments. They can enter the environment directly (for example microbeads in cosmetics) or through the fragmentation of larger plastics where they can persist and bioaccumulate and are generally to be considered to be plastics smaller than 5 mm. It’s a relatively new problem and subsequently, the science is still in it’s infancy and the long-term impact of plastic pollution is unclear. It is possible that plastic may: be a vector for chemical contaminants, promote the growth of microorganisms as it provides a surface for biofilms to grow as well as cause ingestion problems at all levels of the food chain. What is clear however, is that microplastics are ubiquitous in our environment and that we really need to do something about it.

The release of microplastics through the washing of synthetic textiles has been proven but it is difficult to quantify. It occurs through a process known as pilling (basically when your clothes become bobbly) which arises from mechanical action from washing and/or wear. This will happen regardless of what your items are made from and will eventually happen to even the most expensive of clothing.

Microplastic fibres have been found in sediments, organisms and in water sources (Browne et al., 2011) and in wastewater entering sewage treatment plants (Dris et al, 2015). It have shown the microplastic fibres are released during washing of clothing made of acrylic and polyester at 30°C, 40°C and with and without detergent with more fibres being released when bio-detergent and fabric conditioner were used (Napper and Thompson, 2016). It is estimated that 720,000 fibres are released in a 6 kg washing load and these are on average 5.44 mm in length and 14.05 µm in diameter. What is unclear though is how much of this 6 kg of washing consists of acrylic garments and at what stage of their life the garments were at (early washes tend to produce more fibres). When I was researching this, this number (720,000) seemed to pop up a lot but no one had cited where it was from or how it was calculated. It’s a lot for sure and it is significant when you consider how often you do washing and how many wash loads per day or being done worldwide. A quick google shows that there are 83,000 households currently in York (city in the UK where I live), and assuming each household does an average of 4 wash loads (each at 6 kg) per week, that’s approximately 239,000,000,000 fibres released (yes you read that correctly – 239 billion). This of course makes a lot of assumptions and really it’s impossible to work out the real scale of the issue. But it’s a huge problem and it’s a hidden one.

Should I stop crafting with acrylic yarn?

A simple answer is if you can – yes. But it’s a little more complicated than that. Acrylic yarns are generally more accessible – you’ll find them in all crafting shops, non-specialist shops (I’m thinking Wilkos if you’re from the UK and Boyes if you’re from North Yorkshire) and they’re cheaper. My opinion is that it’d be better for people to create their own clothes with acrylic yarn and cherish them than to go to Zara and buy a sweater. Creating your own clothing makes you feel more connected to it and other things you own, therefore needing to buy less. Lower consumption is kinder on the environment.  

Affordable alternatives to 100% acrylic yarn (just a couple of my favourites)
Drops Nepal - Aran weight 65% wool, 35% alpaca
Drops Puna - DK weight 100% alpaca
Rico Creative Cotton - Aran weight, 100% cotton
Cascade 220 - Aran weight 100% wool (A little more expensive but it’s a favourite and not talked about much!)

I think that should answer the questions I had about acrylic yarn. As I said on Instagram, this series is simply to educate and also to open up the conversation around sustainability and the yarncraft community. This is only the first instalment of many so as time goes on, my opinions may change or I may no longer deem yarns I’ve recommended as suitable. But this is a learning process and one which I’m happy to be on.

Please feel free to leave any comments or questions or anything you think I’ve missed.
Hope you learnt something and will come back to join me for the next instalment.

Abbie xx

Sustainability Series : Introduction

Hi and welcome to the sustainability series! This started after reading a creator talk about why they use only vegan yarn which led me to realise that a) I didn’t know if their reasoning was correct and b) how little I know about how different yarns are produced and whether there is a ‘best’ choice fibre. Sustainability is such a buzz word and there is so much information out there but it’s hard to navigate as there are a lot of invested interests (an example are fast fashion brands selling ‘conscious’ lines) and subsequently, a lot of misinformation. It’s also a highly charged subject to talk about which people feel passionately about and at times, arguments can become political. I’m going to attempt to find answers for all the questions we have surrounding sustainability and our craft (knitting and crocheting) using only reputable sources and explaining the science in an accessible way. Please remember that this is my educating myself as well as sharing what I learn so if there is anything you disagree with or think is incorrect, I invite you to start a conversation in the comments.

What to expect

To get an idea of what the big questions are, I asked our crafting community for all their questions and throughout the series, these are what I will be attempting to answer.

@the_knit_purl_girl : What is deemed sustainable in the first place?
@yarn_doctor : Plant fibres: cotton bamboo, raffia - are they sustainable and how are they produced?
@craftea_lass: What should we look for when trying to make sustainable choices? What are conditions like for workers?
@yellyswonders : Are there any yarns made from 100% recycled plastic?
@seacoastyarnworks : What are the most sustainable ways to order yarn? Which companies are the most sustainable?
@Alizaknits : Does acrylic yarn really shed microplastics?
@hippie.needles: How do we find out how the sheep and alpacas we get our yarn from are treated?
@homesteadknits: Where do the big yarn companies yarn come from?
@layleej : Is acrylic or wool better for the environment?
@ssshh_im_counting: Are there any sustainable acrylic options?
@blogbykobrak: Is it better to buy new yarn or unravel old projects/clothes?
@heartsbyhopeuk: Sustainability comparison between wool/alpaca/cotton/acrylic
@lestricotsdelene: Price over sustainability? Are there any affordable sustainable yarns?
@yarn.noodles: Does acrylic yarn shed microplastics? Most sustainable companies? How sustainable is cotton?
@berryknit: Which part of the production process has the biggest environmental impact? What kind of dyes do companies use and what are their impact on the environment?
@becciboo4: The truth of superwash wool. Is it coated in plastic?
@knottedinyarn: Cotton Vs wool as a natural fibre?
@eyeof_thetigers: What about cotton/bamboo/silk/mohair compared to wool in terms of sustainability?

Most of the questions were about ‘how bad is acrylic yarn?’ and ‘is super-wash yarn harmful for the environment?’ and lots of questions were asked more than once. Rather than one huge article, I’m going to take each material and investigate how it is made, where it comes from and any associated risks to the environment. Where I’ve used sources, I will cite them and you’ll find a bibliography at the end of every article and where possible, I will use open source articles so you won’t need to pay or have access to a university account to read them if you choose to.

A quick note on sustainability: Sustainability is such a buzz word, it’s almost lost it’s meaning. Ultimately, it refers to meeting the needs of today without impairing our ability to meet the needs of tomorrow and is concerned with not only the environment, but also social equity and economic development. In the context of knitting and crocheting, we can consider 1) the raw material - how it is produced and once waste, how it is processed 2) treatment which the raw material undergoes - for example dyeing 3) How the yarn is transported both from manufacture to point of sale and then from point of sale to the consumer 4) Any waste produced during washing and 5) it’s durability. It’s a huge question to consider and isn’t one which is easy to answer so this is a big journey and one which I hope you’ll enjoy.

Just a short bio about me for transparency - I’m currently an Environmental Scientist at the University of York. I’m doing a PhD looking into peatland management and how this affects peat soil chemistry and how this chemistry impacts drinking water treatment and quality. My undergraduate and masters degrees focussed on water and soil pollution so this is the kind of thing I think about on a daily basis. More than that, I’m obsessed with knitting and I care about protecting our natural resources so I hope through this, I can help by myself and others to make good choices moving forward. At the time of writing (before I’ve done any in depth research), I prefer natural fibre and will also opt for wool or plant based fibre over acrylic. I’m not vegan or vegetarian and I believe it isn’t what we eat that is the problem - it’s how much of what we eat and the way it is produced that is causing harm.

I hope that this series will be educational and interesting, and by learning more about the materials of our craft will make us more connected with both what we’re creating and also the communities along the production chain. Please leave any questions or comments below and let’s start conversations to help us move forward.

Abbie xo