The-Impact-of-the-Clothes-You-Wear Namarie
on October 21, 2025

The Impact of the Clothes You Wear

Why Clothes Matter: The Life-Cycle of a T-Shirt

Every time you slip into your clothes, you're engaging in a complex supply chain that touches so many sensitive areas before ever touching your skin. A T-shirt is one of the most common garments in the world. Billions are produced every year, worn a few dozen times, and often discarded. Yet, behind this simple item lies a global supply chain that stretches from cotton farms and oil refineries to dyehouses, laundries, and landfills. Understanding the life-cycle of a T-shirt reveals why clothes matter for both people and the planet.

 

Stage 1: Raw materials — Naturals & Synthetics

Polyester is the most widely used textile fiber, accounting for over 54% of global production in 20221. It is derived from petroleum, is energy-intensive, and contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions.

Let’s take 250g standard T-shirt as a comparison between types of fibers. For just this one T-shirt, ~4,100 liters of water (~1080 gallons) is used for the production of polyester polymer, spinning of fibers, making the fabric, dyeing, finishing, and garment assembly. Conventional cotton  is grown on about 2.5% of global farmland2 (~4% in USA3, ~10% in India4, 2% in China5) but consumes around 16% of insecticides6 and 6% of pesticides worldwide7. Organically-grown cotton reduces those drawbacks. However, producing a single conventional cotton T-shirt of about 250 grams requires roughly 2,700 liters of water (718 gallons)8 with ~90% of that going to growing the cotton. So be mindful of choosing clothes that you don’t just love at the moment. Make the use of all the raw materials on the production side count by choosing styles that will last in your closet for a longer time – based on style and quality.

Natural fibers are a better choice for people and planet and there are many options from which to select based on the purpose and desired properties of the clothes. At Namarie, regeneratively grown hemp is the fiber of choice because of the two-pronged mission of benefiting the people wearing the clothes and the planet carrying nearly 8-billion people and their clothes.

 

Stage 2: Manufacturing  - Polyester, Cotton, Hemp

Transforming fibers into fabric involves spinning, weaving or knitting, dyeing, and finishing. This stage is energy-intensive and chemically intensive. Textile dyeing and finishing account for 20% of global industrial water pollution10.

Polyester

While cotton’s main impacts are tied to agricultural inputs (water, pesticides, insecticides), polyester production requires more energy at this stage. 50% of the ~170 megajoules of energy required to make this one polyester shirt is used just to make the polymer and turn it into fiber. How much is 170 MJ? Based on data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA 2021 Residential Energy Consumption Survey, RECS), that would be enough energy to provide for the electricity needs of an average US household for about a day and half (39 hours) !

Hemp

Compared to most other plants suitable for textile fiber production, hemp provides much more fiber per unit of land used because of its higher cellulose content and then it’s lower amounts of lignin and pectin, natural often sticky parts of the plant which are not desired in fiber-making, make it possible to process with lower energy usage in the fiber preparation process.

Hemp requires no pesticides, fertilizer, or irrigation. When grown regeneratively, hemp improves soil health and sequesters carbon. How? At Namarie, the seeds used are also boosted by spores of mycorrhizal fungi. So, when the deeply penetrating roots of hemp work their way into the depleted rainforest soils that Namarie seeks to restore, they play a major part in not only pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere but bringing that carbon back into the soil and building water and nutrient distribution networks that support the soil in also restoring its biodiversity.

Hemp processing can require specialized machinery that can add impacts if not optimized. Namarie uses a proprietary combination of processing that minimizes he process intensity while also producing cleaner, softer, higher quality fibers for textile use.

 

Stage 3: Distribution — a global journey

Fibers are often grown, spun, woven, sewn, and sold in different countries. A T-shirt’s journey may cover tens of thousands of kilometers. Transport adds emissions, but studies show it represents a smaller fraction compared to raw material and manufacturing impacts4 .

 

Stage 4: Use phase — washing, drying, ironing

For consumers, the biggest impacts come from how we wash and dry clothing. Each wash of a polyester T-shirt can release hundreds of thousands of microfibers9. These microplastics escape wastewater treatment and end up in rivers, oceans, food systems, and in human blood and organs. Cotton and hemp T-shirts do not shed persistent microplastics, though they still require energy and water for washing and drying. The lint that is produced from natural fibers is biodegradable and does not lead to persistent harm.

Washing at lower temperatures, air-drying, and reducing frequency can all significantly cut impacts from washing.

 

Stage 5: End of life — landfill, incineration, or recycling

Less than 1% of textiles are recycled into new textiles11,12. Most discarded T-shirts, and other garments, are incinerated or landfilled. In landfills, cotton and hemp biodegrade, while polyester persists for decades as fibers and as micro- and nano-plastics that can leach into the environment. Incineration recovers some energy but emits CO₂ and toxins.

~7–9% of all fibers used in textiles now come from recycled sources (mostly recycled polyester from PET bottles), but almost all of that is not from used clothes being turned into new clothes. Textile-to-textile closed-loop recycling remains <1% of the market

So, why is the recycling rate so low?

  • Fiber blends (cotton/polyester blends) are hard to separate at scale.
  • Mechanical recycling shortens fiber length and lowers quality; output is often only suitable for down-cycled products.
  • Chemical recycling can make higher-quality fibers but is still limited by cost, energy use, and scale.
  • Collection & sorting infrastructure are inadequate in most regions.

Polyester does not biodegrade, adding to long-term waste and microplastic pollution. While there are researchers and companies dedicated to figuring out how to recycle polyester textiles, the impact on the industry faces many logistical and economic roadblocks. Solutions for separating mixed textiles are still in development and, currently, new polyester is still cheaper for companies to select than recycled polyester.

 

Why it matters — one shirt, billions of impacts

When scaled up, the textile sector emits about 1.2 billion tonnes of CO₂e annually, more than international flights and maritime shipping combined4. Cotton, polyester, and hemp each tell a different story — with hemp offering promising reductions in both water use and carbon emissions when grown regeneratively.

 

What can you do ?

  1. Choose wisely. Prefer certified sustainable fibers (GOTS organic cotton, ROC hemp, recycled fibers), Choose lasting styles, avoid fast-fashion trends and quality.
  2. Care better. Wash less often, use cold water, air-dry, and install microfiber filters to catch synthetics still in your wardrobe.
  3. Extend lifespan. Repair, resell, donate, or recycle textiles responsibly.

 

A T-shirt is never just a T-shirt. It is water, energy, chemicals, and labor, woven into fabric. Your choices can make it a story of regeneration and responsibility. By choosing materials like organic cotton, responsibly grown wool, and regeneratively grown hemp, caring for clothes wisely, and supporting circular solutions, we can shift fashion’s story from extraction and waste toward renewal and resilience.

 

References

Textile Exchange. (2024). Preferred Fiber & Materials Market Report.

  1. FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization)  https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/RL
  2. USDA Economic Research Service, Cotton and Wool Outlook (2020) Publications | Economic Research Service
  3. Quantis. (2018). Measuring Fashion: Environmental Impact of the Global Apparel and Footwear Industries. Measuring Fashion Environmental Impact of the Global Apparel and Footwear Industries Study.pdf
  4. ICAC (International Cotton Advisory Committee), Global Cotton Statistics 2019 Report, https://icac.org/Content/PublicationsPdf%20Files/30502943_icac_cotton_data_book_2019.pdf
  5. UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme)  Sustainability and Cotton Farming Overview, 2020, https://www.unep.org/resources/report/cotton-and-environment-sustainability-analysis
  6. PAN UK (Pesticide Action Network) The Environmental Impact of Cotton (2018 factsheet), https://www.pan-uk.org/the-true-cost-of-cotton/
  7. Water Footprint Network / Hoekstra et al.  The Water Footprint of Cotton Consumption (2011), https://waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/Report47-WaterFootprintCotton_1.pdf
  8. Napper, I., & Thompson, R. (2016). Release of synthetic microplastic fibres from domestic washing machines. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 112(1–2).
  9. Ellen MacArthur Foundation. (2017). A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning fashion’s future.
  10. Management of used and waste textiles in Europe’s circular economy | Publications | European Environment Agency (EEA)
  11. Textiles | In-depth topics | European Environment Agency (EEA)
  12. Hemp as a potential raw material toward a sustainable world: A review, Heliyon, Volume 8, Issue 1, 2022, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402200041X 

 

This article was written by Dr. Mansour AbdulBaki.

Mansour is the Chief Science Officer and a Founding Partner at Namarie. He earned his PhD from the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at the University of Houston where he worked on developing and understanding functional polymer nanocomposites for piezoelectric and photovoltaic applications. At Invista, he led R&D and commercialization of patented nylon and polyester fiber technologies used in performance flooring and consumer applications where his main focus was always improving product performance and compatibility with human and environmental health. His work resulted in the ability of carpet manufacturers to produce stain and soil resistant products without the need for fluorochemical (PFAS) treatments as well as other consumer-focused innovations. At Namarie, he now applies his expertise to rethink performance textiles, innovate in manufacturing processes, and lead the development of our Sylvendel fabric.