Question: Some of the clothes we wear are made of pure cotton and some are made of chemical fiber. Which one is more environmentally friendly?
Answer: Pure cotton is a natural fiber, while chemical fiber is artificially synthesized from petroleum and other raw materials. People will take it for granted that natural things are more environmentally friendly than synthetic ones. In some aspects, pure cotton is indeed more environmentally friendly than chemical fiber. The production of chemical fibers requires more energy and water, produces more pollutants, and chemical fiber waste is less likely to degrade.
But pure cotton also has environmental problems in other aspects. When growing cotton, large amounts of water are used for irrigation and large amounts of pesticides are sprayed to eliminate pests. Cotton is the crop that uses the most pesticides, and about 25% of the world's pesticides are used in cotton cultivation. Herbicides and defoliants are also used when cotton is harvested. When growing the cotton needed to produce a pure cotton T-shirt, approximately 100 grams of fertilizers and pesticides are lost to water, air and soil. Each kilogram of cotton fiber consumes 7,000 to 29,000 liters of water.
Pure cotton clothes absorb dirt more easily than chemical fiber clothes, so they are harder to wash and dry. The water temperature required for washing pure cotton clothes is higher, and they are prone to wrinkles after washing, so they need to be ironed. These all mean that more energy is consumed to maintain pure cotton clothes.
Therefore, there is no clear answer to whether pure cotton or chemical fiber is more environmentally friendly.
Question: The energy consumed by a piece of pure cotton clothing during its "lifetime" is equivalent to how much carbon dioxide is emitted?
Answer: A piece of pure cotton clothing will consume electricity during its "life", including cotton planting, cotton cloth and clothing manufacturing, transportation, and use. If the electricity is provided by coal, it will Will emit carbon dioxide. According to research from the Manufacturing Institute of the University of Cambridge in the UK, a 250-gram pure cotton T-shirt consumes approximately 109 megajoules (equivalent to approximately 30 kilowatt hours of electricity) in its "lifetime", which is equivalent to emitting approximately 7 kilograms. of carbon dioxide is 28 times its own weight. The specific analysis is as follows:
Cotton cultivation requires the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and defoliants, and the production of these requires energy. In addition, pumping water for irrigation also consumes energy. Combined, approximately 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide is emitted to obtain the cotton needed to produce a pure cotton T-shirt. Using this cotton to weave cloth and then use the cloth to make T-shirts will emit about 1.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide during the entire production process. When cotton is transported from the growing field to the factory, T-shirts are transported from the factory to the store, and then from the store to the buyer's home, these transportation processes will emit about 0.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide. According to the washing requirements, pure cotton T-shirts should be washed in a washing machine with 60°C warm water, and must also be dried and ironed. Assuming that a pure cotton T-shirt has been washed, dried, and ironed 25 times, a total of 4 kilograms of carbon dioxide will be emitted.
In addition to consuming energy and emitting carbon dioxide, a piece of clothing also produces garbage during its "lifetime". After a pure cotton T-shirt is discarded and burned in a landfill, it will leave about 3 grams of ash, and the coal burned to provide electricity will also produce about 17 grams during its "lifetime" ash and 800 grams of waste (leftover from coal mining).
Ordinary Chinese people generally don’t dry their clothes, and their clothes last longer, so these numbers may not be applicable to China, but they still have certain reference value. Question: How much energy does a piece of chemical fiber clothing consume during its "lifetime" equal to how much carbon dioxide is emitted?
Answer: The British Environmental Resources Management (ERM) company once calculated the energy consumed by a pair of 100% polyester pants weighing about 400 grams during its "lifetime". The pants are produced in Taiwan, China, made into pants in Indonesia, and shipped to the UK for sale. It is assumed that their service life is 2 years. They have been washed 92 times, washed in a washing machine with 50°C warm water, and dried in a dryer after washing. Let dry and then iron for an average of 2 minutes. Calculated in this way, the total energy consumed in its "lifetime" is about 200 kilowatt hours (equivalent to 200 kilowatt-hours of electricity). If the electricity is provided by coal, it will emit about 47 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which is 117 times its own weight.
You may think that these pants travel all over the world from Taiwan, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom, thus greatly increasing their energy consumption. In fact, the energy consumption caused by transportation is very small, accounting for only 0.03%, which can be ignored. Polyester fabric is woven from polyester fiber, which is produced from petroleum raw materials. The energy consumption of this production process accounts for about 7%.
The energy consumption in spinning, printing and dyeing fibers, sewing them into pants, and transporting them to wholesale centers accounts for about 13%. The pants are transported from the wholesale center to retail stores, where they are displayed and sold. This part of the energy consumption accounts for about 4%. The main energy consumption is generated during the purchase and use process by consumers, accounting for about 77%, of which the washing part accounts for 37%, the drying part accounts for 27%, and the ironing part accounts for 12%.
Therefore, if you want to reduce the energy consumption of a piece of clothing, it is mainly during its consumption and use stage, such as lowering the washing water temperature and changing the drying to natural drying. If the washing temperature of the washing machine is lowered from 50°C to 40°C, energy consumption can be reduced by 10%.
Question: Are leather products more environmentally friendly than artificial leather?
Answer: The production process of turning skin into leather not only consumes a lot of energy and water, but also uses many toxic substances, including formaldehyde, coal tar, dyes and cyanide. In order to increase the softness and water resistance of the leather, the leather is also tanned. Leather cannot be biodegraded after being tanned, and most leather is tanned using chromium salts such as chromium sulfate, resulting in chromium-containing waste. Skin contact with chromium salts can cause allergies and ulcers, and inhalation of chromium salts into the respiratory tract can cause inflammation. Chromium salts can invade the human body through the digestive tract, respiratory tract, skin and mucous membranes. Long-term exposure to chromium salts can lead to chronic poisoning. Sewage discharged from tanneries can contaminate water sources, causing nearby groundwater to contain high concentrations of lead, formaldehyde and cyanide. A survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the incidence of leukemia among residents near a tannery in Kentucky was five times the national average. After many old tanneries were abandoned, the surrounding areas remained unsuitable for living or growing crops.
Question: Why can wearing cashmere sweaters damage the environment?
Answer: Many people don’t know that the raw materials of woolen sweaters and cashmere sweaters come from completely different sources. The raw material of woolen sweaters is sheep wool, while the raw material of cashmere sweaters is cashmere. Although some people are selling "sheep cashmere" clothes on the market, sheep only produce hair and not cashmere. Real cashmere only comes from cashmere, which is a layer of velvet that grows on the surface of goats' skin to keep out the cold in winter. It automatically grows in spring. fall off. Cashmere is both light and warm, and is of higher quality than wool. Its thermal performance is 8 times that of wool, but its output is very low and it is much more expensive than wool. A sheep produces 2 to 3 kilograms of hair per year, while a cashmere goat produces an average of only 110 to 170 grams of hair per year. Making a double-ply cashmere sweater requires the cashmere of more than 2 cashmere goats, and making a cashmere jacket requires 4 ~Cashmere from 6 cashmere goats.
Moreover, grazing goats causes much greater damage to the grassland than sheep. Goats use their hooves to dig and destroy topsoil; they eat more than 10% of their body weight every day. When eating grass, they gnaw down to the roots of the grass, eating it up and making it difficult for the grass to regenerate; they can also gnaw off the bark of saplings, making it impossible for the trees to grow grow. China is the country with the largest cashmere production in the world, with an annual output of approximately 10,000 tons. In recent years, people's consumption of cashmere has increased dramatically, leading to an increase in cashmere goat breeding, which in turn has led to greater damage to pasture vegetation. Overgrazing leads to soil erosion, desertification and dust storms. According to a 2005 study by the World Bank, the Ordos grassland in Inner Mongolia is the area with the most severe soil erosion in the world, and the developed goat industry there is the main reason for this situation.
Question: What substances harmful to health and the environment may be contained in a piece of clothing?
Answer: There are many opportunities for clothing to be contaminated by harmful substances during the production process, which will cause harm to human health and the environment. A large amount of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and defoliants are used in the cultivation of cotton. As a result, the air, water, and soil are polluted, and pesticides will also remain in cotton fibers and the clothing made of them. To make rayon, wood pulp needs to be treated with toxic substances such as caustic soda and sulfuric acid. The production of nylon and polyester releases nitrogen oxide, a greenhouse gas more than 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. When storing textile raw materials, preservatives, antifungal agents, and mothproofing agents must be used. During the weaving process, oxidants, catalysts, detergents, bleaches, and whitening fluorescent agents must be used, all of which may remain on clothing. . Azo dyes used in printing and dyeing can cause cancer. Dyes often contain heavy metals, benzene, organochlorines and other substances that are harmful to health and the environment. In order to make the clothes bright-colored, non-fading, wrinkle-free and non-shrinking, a large amount of formaldehyde-containing dyeing auxiliaries and resin finishing agents must be added to the fabric. If not handled properly, a large amount of formaldehyde will remain on the clothes. Fire-resistant nylon fabrics also contain formaldehyde.
Non-iron casual clothes and children's clothes with bright colors, dyeing and printing are most likely to exceed the standard of formaldehyde. During the wearing process, free formaldehyde will be gradually released, causing allergic symptoms. To make clothing wrinkle-free, perfluorinated chemicals, a carcinogen, are also added to the fabric. When purchasing clothing, especially children's clothing, it is best to choose clothing that is white, light-colored, without printing, with small patterns and the printing on the pattern should not be very hard, and avoid additional functions such as anti-wrinkle, no-iron, waterproof, anti-fouling, etc. . If the clothing has a pungent smell, odor, or fragrance, it means that the formaldehyde content is high or there are chemical residues. Since formaldehyde is easily soluble in water, it is best to rinse new clothing thoroughly with water to reduce the formaldehyde content after buying it home.
Question: When buying clothes, which type of fabric is more environmentally friendly?
Answer: Organic cotton does not use pesticides when growing and is more environmentally friendly than ordinary cotton, but it is more than twice as expensive. Due to the negative impact of cotton cultivation on the environment, people began to look for more environmentally friendly natural fibers to replace it, such as hemp fiber. Although natural hemp fiber is relatively thick and hard, and was only used to make ropes, coarse cloth, etc. in the past, hemp fiber can become soft and strong through new technology and can be used to make cloth. Hemp fiber is four times stronger than cotton fiber and twice as abrasion resistant, and has advantages in resistance to mildew, dirt, and wrinkles. Growing hemp requires far less irrigation water, insecticides and other pesticides than growing cotton, making it cheaper and more environmentally friendly. Research from the University of Melbourne shows that if hemp is used to replace cotton in the production of cloth, oil and paper, its "ecological footprint" (impact on ecology) can be reduced by 50%. Similarly, fabrics made from bamboo fiber and linen are much more environmentally friendly than cotton because they save water and use less pesticides.
Some man-made fibers are also more environmentally friendly. Rayon is produced from wood pulp, using renewable trees. Compared to cotton, growing trees requires less irrigation water and less pesticides. Polylactic acid fiber produced from corn starch can reduce the use of fuel by 20% to 50% compared with chemical fiber produced from petroleum. PLA fibers have a low refractive index, so dark colors can be achieved without using large amounts of dye.
Question: How to choose "green clothing"?
Answer: Durable clothing is more "green" than easily damaged clothing. The most "green" clothes are those that are already hanging in your closet - from a resource consumption perspective: by buying fewer new clothes, you can reduce the materials and energy used to produce them. Of course, this is not in line with economic laws, and it is unrealistic to blindly restrict people's pursuit of fashion. The impact of clothing on the environment mainly lies not in the production and sales process, but in the cleaning during use. Washing clothes consumes a lot of water and electricity, and detergents and dry cleaning solvents also cause environmental pollution. In order to be "green" in this regard, it is important to take care of your clothes and try to avoid getting them dirty to reduce the number of washes.
What people usually call "green clothing" or "ecological clothing", from a health perspective, refers to those products that are produced with raw materials and processes that are less harmful to the environment or harmless to human health. Harmful clothing. A variety of dyes, auxiliaries and finishing agents are used in the textile production process. Some of the pesticides used during the growth of cotton will be absorbed by the fiber. If excessive amounts of these substances remain in the finished garments, they will harm human health. Many countries and industry organizations have formulated technical standards for ecological textiles, stipulating the residues of harmful substances (such as formaldehyde, heavy metals, pesticides), pH value, volatile substance content, etc. in textiles, and requiring that harmful dyes and finishing agents are not allowed to be used. and flame retardants, etc. The most authoritative among them is the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 ecological certification standard of the International Environmental Protection Textile Association. Products that have passed the relevant certification can hang the Oeko-Tex label. Looking for this label is one of the best references for purchasing green clothing.
Question: Which is more environmentally friendly, baby diapers or paper diapers?
Answer: Diapers can be used repeatedly, while paper diapers can only be used once. In the minds of ordinary people, it is taken for granted that reusable products are definitely more environmentally friendly than disposable products. However, reusable products also have non-environmental aspects during their production and use. Diapers are made of cotton. The cultivation of cotton and the production of cotton cloth use water, pesticides and other toxic substances. When cleaning diapers, water, detergent and electricity are consumed. These processes consume energy and emit carbon dioxide and toxic substances. .
The British Environmental Protection Agency released a report of more than 200 pages in 2005, which analyzed in detail the impact of diapers and disposable diapers on the environment in all aspects of production, sales, use and disposal, and concluded that there is no difference between the two. the difference. Assuming that an infant uses diapers or diapers for two and a half years, the non-renewable resources consumed and greenhouse gas emissions are equivalent to driving a car for 1,300 to 2,200 miles (about 2,000 to 3,500 kilometers).
Although the impact of diapers and paper diapers on the environment is similar, they have different focuses. The environmental impact of diapers mainly comes from the production of their raw materials and the conversion of these raw materials into the components of diapers. The environmental impact of diapers mainly comes from the electricity consumed in the washing and drying processes. Therefore, in order to reduce the impact of diapers on the environment, the weight of diapers should be reduced and their materials should be improved. The main responsibility lies with manufacturers; while the main responsibility for reducing the impact of diapers on the environment lies with consumers, who should reduce the amount of waste in diaper washing, Energy consumption during the drying process, such as lowering the washing temperature, increasing the amount of washing per time, and using natural drying methods instead of using a dryer.
Question: I heard that inflatable sneakers use environmentally harmful materials and are not environmentally friendly. Is this true?
Answer: The sole air cushion of inflatable sports shoes is filled with sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), which is an artificial gas that is colorless, odorless, non-toxic, non-flammable and non-corrosive under normal conditions, with a density of approximately It is 5 times stronger than air and is one of the most chemically stable substances known. Its inertness is similar to nitrogen. Due to the above and other excellent properties, sulfur hexafluoride has been widely used in the electrical industry, metal smelting, aerospace, medical, meteorological, chemical and other industries in recent years. Unfortunately, sulfur hexafluoride is also one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, 22,200 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.
The production of Nike sports shoes once used 288 tons of sulfur hexafluoride a year, accounting for 1% of the world's total production of sulfur hexafluoride. According to the US "Business Week" report, the greenhouse effect gas carried in Nike shoes produced in 1997 is equivalent to 7 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is equal to the exhaust gas emitted by 1 million cars. After Nike was informed of the dangers of sulfur hexafluoride in 1992, it began researching the use of nitrogen to replace sulfur hexafluoride. After using sulfur hexafluoride for 14 years, it launched a sulfur hexafluoride-free nitrogen air cushion in January 2006. shoe. On October 26, 2005, the European Parliament voted to adopt a proposed regulation and directive to ban the emission of fluorinated greenhouse gases from many types of products, including sports shoes.
However, sulfur hexafluoride contained in manufactured sneakers and other products will be emitted after the products are discarded. Question: Is there any way to save energy when using an electric iron?
Answer: Ironing clothes usually takes a long time. The energy consumption of an ordinary electric iron is equivalent to several 100-watt light bulbs. In order to save electricity, you should first reduce unnecessary ironing. For example, some clothes do not need to be ironed, and items such as towels do not need to be ironed. Try to iron as many pieces of clothing as possible to avoid wasting energy caused by using the iron frequently and for short periods of time.
When purchasing an electric iron, it is best to choose a product that can adjust the temperature so that different fabrics can be ironed at different temperatures. Generally, chemical fiber products require the lowest temperature, wool products are higher, and cotton products are even higher. Choosing the right temperature can achieve the most suitable ironing effect, avoid damage to clothes, and improve electricity efficiency. If you need to humidify the clothes when ironing, just moisten them moderately and don't add too much water.
The order of the ironing process should be reasonably arranged. For example, while waiting for the iron to heat up, iron some chemical fiber products first, then iron cotton wool products after the temperature rises. Turn off the iron a few minutes before ending the ironing. Use the residual heat to iron the remaining synthetic products. If the electric iron cannot adjust the temperature, it is even more necessary to make full use of the preheating and residual heat time. The electric iron should be turned off when not in use, and do not let the iron "burn empty", otherwise it will waste electricity and be unsafe.