When Brittany Goldwyn Merth ripped up the carpets in her Maryland home in March 2019 and laid down vinyl tile, she meticulously documented the process. Merth is a do-it-yourself influencer, part of a growing group of well-coiffed women who track their home improvement projects online through sleek videos and posts studded with affiliate links. To her 46,000 …
Category Archives: Plastic Pollution Articles & News
Sea turtles along Pakistan coast face host of threats
KARACHI:
Sea turtles along the coast are facing a welter of anthropogenic threats, including habitat degradation, plastic pollution, and entanglement in fishing gears, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
As a result of the construction of huts along beaches in Karachi and Balochistan, major nesting grounds of sea turtles are adversely affected, the study said on the eve of World Sea Turtle Day.
Since 2000, World Sea Turtle Day is observed every year on June 16 to raise awareness about the dwindling population of sea turtles and their diminishing habitat.
According to Muhammad Moazzam Khan, the technical adviser to WWF-Pakistan, plastic waste, collapsing huts, and rubble pose a serious threat to nesting females and juveniles along Pakistan’s coastal areas.
In Pakistan, sea turtles are known to nest on a number of beaches, including Sandspit, Hawke’s Bay, and Cape Monz along the Sindh coast, as well as Taq (Ormara), Astola Island, Gwadar Headland, and Daran along the Balochistan coast.
Thousands of female turtles visit these beaches to nest and lay eggs.
Also read: WATCH: Wildlife team cradles green turtles babies from beach to sea in Karachi
To collect data on the entanglement of turtles, the WWF-Pakistan initiated a study in 2012, which revealed that 30,000 sea turtles were annually caught in tuna gillnet fisheries of the country.
This included roughly 25,500 Olive Ridley and 4,500 Green turtles in the offshore waters of Pakistan.
Entanglement in fishing nets is the most serious threat to marine turtles.
It was estimated that about 3 per cent of entangled turtles were dying due to drowning or mishandling onboard fishing vessels.
Protecting endangered species
To protect the endangered species, the organisation has trained some 100 “skippers and crew members” to safely release the entangled sea turtles and developed a modification in the operation of the gillnets.
This, the study said, has reduced the entanglement of sea turtles by 85 per cent.
Pollution is also another major threat to the sea turtle population in Pakistani waters. Popular beaches are littered with garbage, dominated by single-use and micro-plastics.
The study has also reported on the impact of diesel and petrol on the population of turtles, stating that exposure to these fuels results in deformation in hatchlings and so, poses a serious threat to their survival.
Government agencies have taken several steps in recent years for the protection of sea turtles along the coasts.
“Through the efforts of WWF-Pakistan, fisheries-related legislations of both maritime provinces have been amended and sea turtles, as well as freshwater turtles, are declared protected,” the study added.
According to Khan, the declaration of Astola Island as a marine protected area, actions taken by the wildlife departments of Sindh and Balochistan, as well as awareness programs initiated by non-governmental wildlife organisations, have collectively increased the turtle population along the coastal regions.
Also read: Turtle species face extinction threat due to illegal fuel trade
However, he added that there is a need to declare all turtle beaches along the coast of Sindh and Balochistan marine protected areas.
Rab Nawaz, the senior director of WWF-Pakistan’s Conservation Biodiversity, for his part, called for “better protection and conservation” of sea turtles in the country.
He said these unique and iconic animals have been in existence for more than 100 million years but are under “serious” threat.
Human activities such as the destruction of nesting sites and unplanned development, as well as climate change, are pushing turtles closer to extinction, which calls for immediate steps for their conservation, he stressed.
Major species
Experts believe that the country has lost 25-30 per cent of the nesting ground for Green turtles over the past decade.
Female turtles lay their eggs on beaches between October and February, and the eggs hatch in about 60 days.
Five species of marine turtles are reported from Pakistan, with Green turtles (Chelonia mydas) the most dominant one, while another important sea turtle is the Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) which used to nest along the coast.
However, no nest of this turtle species has been reported since 2001, the study said.
The other three species, including loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta), hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata), and leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) are reported from Pakistan and only a few authentic records are made by WWF-Pakistan.
Although turtles are not commercially harvested for food, however, poaching of turtle eggs has been reported.
Turtle hatchlings are also illegally removed from their nests and sold in aquarium shops.
“Although the government takes action against poachers, this illegal trade still continues and needs to be curbed,” it concluded.
Saving a Texan bayou, ‘16 bottles’ at a time
Bayou Dave, a modern-day Sisyphus, has spent the last dozen years ridding a trash-choked Houston waterway of plastic and Styrofoam. No matter how much Bayou Dave hunts, his quarry never goes away. He finds it each time he sets out on Buffalo Bayou, a slow moving river that wends through the country’s fourth largest city and out to its port. And so it was one recent sweltering morning when he and his longtime deckhand, Trey Dennis, headed on a small barge to a floating boom they’d set out on the water the day before.“Ah, isn’t that sweet,” said Bayou Dave, whose real name is David Rivers, as the boom swung into view.Cradled in the boom’s massive embrace was what they were looking for, and knew they’d find: a vast whorling jumble of trash.There was a toy airplane, a yellow football, a foam egg carton and a nail salon pink flip-flop. There were takeout containers, disposable dental picks and foam cups from 7-11 and Chick-fil-A. More than anything else, there was plastic — bottles that once held water, Coca-Cola, Gatorade, Sprite, Armor All multipurpose car cleaner and Fireball cinnamon whiskey.Mr. Rivers maneuvered the barge over to the island of garbage — as big as a tennis court, it represented a fraction of the trash that flows through the bayou each day — and he and Mr. Dennis got to work.More than 200 square miles of Houston’s sprawling urban streets drain into Buffalo Bayou and one of its tributaries, White Oak Bayou, with the runoff from every storm and rainfall carrying all manner of tossed and lost debris to the waters.Mr. Rivers and Mr. Dennis are among the handful of people who regularly intercept the garbage before it finds its way to the Gulf of Mexico.Using a jury-rigged suction device crafted with the help of duct tape, they haul the equivalent of about 250 full garbage bags out of the Bayou and its nearby waterways each week.Trey Dennis, Mr. Rivers’s deckhand, guided the suction device to suck up trash from the bayou and on to the craft.Michael Starghill Jr. for The New York TimesDowntown Houston seen from the bayou system on a recent morning.Michael Starghill Jr. for The New York TimesMaia Corbitt, president of Texans for Clean Water, described the pair as “our last line of defense” before the trash flows through two ecologically sensitive estuaries and into Galveston Bay. Robby Robinson, the field operations manager for Buffalo Bayou Partnership, the pair’s employer, described their work as “endless, thankless, no reward.”“You just gotta be a special person,” Mr. Robinson said.For Mr. Rivers, working on the Bayou is a calling. He’s been cleaning up its waterways pretty much every weekday for the past dozen years. Few people are more attuned to its inhabitants and its health.Earlier this year Mr. Rivers spotted, to his delight and relief, the first snakes he’s seen on the bayou since Hurricane Harvey wiped out much of its wildlife in 2017. He revels in the riotous colors that crowd the bayou’s banks each spring and fall, waxes rapturous about its assorted birds, rescues baby turtles from rafts of trash, and mourns the fish killed by periodic algal blooms.“It’s the whole ecosystem I’m concerned about,” said Mr. Rivers, 51. “The animals aren’t responsible for the pollution. But they’re directly affected by it.”Growing up in South Acres, a hard bitten Houston neighborhood, Mr. Rivers was a devotee of the nature show “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” and, later, “The Crocodile Hunter.”He worked a series of jobs — stocking shelves at Target, mending railroad tracks, working as a security guard, landscaper and cleaning up toxic spills after Hurricane Katrina — before getting hired to work on the bayou in 2010.A rotating cast served as deckhands on Bayou Dave’s barge until 2015, when Mr. Dennis came aboard. A former high school football player who grew up in Mississippi, Mr. Dennis adored the physicality of the job. “I’m saving the world one bottle, OK, by 16 bottles, at a time,” said Mr. Dennis, 30, who Mr. Rivers nicknamed Country Slim. “This is the best way for our children in the long run to stay healthy too.”Mr. Rivers said he’s been delighted and relieved to see the snakes slowly return to the river since Hurricane Harvey swept through in 2017.Michael Starghill Jr. for The New York TimesOpening the top hatch of the barge to reveal a brimming trash container.Michael Starghill Jr. for The New York TimesBuffalo Bayou is about 18,000 years old, and was saved from being artificially rerouted more than half a century ago, when environmentalists enlisted the help of George H.W. Bush, then a new congressman. In the 1980s, the nonprofit Buffalo Bayou Partnership was formed to maintain and create green spaces and hiking and biking trails along 10 miles of the roughly 52-mile bayou. About two decades later, a board member, Mike Garver, introduced a barge that suctioned up floating garbage, which Mr. Rivers later helped redesign after he became its captain.Mr. Rivers and Mr. Dennis have bayou trash retrieval down to an art.Their bayou-saving chariot is a 30-foot barge mottled with rust. A hardtop bimini shades its helm, a lone concession to human comfort, for the barge has no seats. A foot-wide vacuum hose rests on its bow, fastened with duct tape to another massive hose that feeds a containment area below deck.Understand the Latest News on Climate ChangeCard 1 of 5Great Salt Lake.
Saving a Texan bayou, ‘16 bottles’ at a time
Bayou Dave, a modern-day Sisyphus, has spent the last dozen years ridding a trash-choked Houston waterway of plastic and Styrofoam. No matter how much Bayou Dave hunts, his quarry never goes away. He finds it each time he sets out on Buffalo Bayou, a slow moving river that wends through the country’s fourth largest city and out to its port. And so it was one recent sweltering morning when he and his longtime deckhand, Trey Dennis, headed on a small barge to a floating boom they’d set out on the water the day before.“Ah, isn’t that sweet,” said Bayou Dave, whose real name is David Rivers, as the boom swung into view.Cradled in the boom’s massive embrace was what they were looking for, and knew they’d find: a vast whorling jumble of trash.There was a toy airplane, a yellow football, a foam egg carton and a nail salon pink flip-flop. There were takeout containers, disposable dental picks and foam cups from 7-11 and Chick-fil-A. More than anything else, there was plastic — bottles that once held water, Coca-Cola, Gatorade, Sprite, Armor All multipurpose car cleaner and Fireball cinnamon whiskey.Mr. Rivers maneuvered the barge over to the island of garbage — as big as a tennis court, it represented a fraction of the trash that flows through the bayou each day — and he and Mr. Dennis got to work.More than 200 square miles of Houston’s sprawling urban streets drain into Buffalo Bayou and one of its tributaries, White Oak Bayou, with the runoff from every storm and rainfall carrying all manner of tossed and lost debris to the waters.Mr. Rivers and Mr. Dennis are among the handful of people who regularly intercept the garbage before it finds its way to the Gulf of Mexico.Using a jury-rigged suction device crafted with the help of duct tape, they haul the equivalent of about 250 full garbage bags out of the Bayou and its nearby waterways each week.Trey Dennis, Mr. Rivers’s deckhand, guided the suction device to suck up trash from the bayou and on to the craft.Michael Starghill Jr. for The New York TimesDowntown Houston seen from the bayou system on a recent morning.Michael Starghill Jr. for The New York TimesMaia Corbitt, president of Texans for Clean Water, described the pair as “our last line of defense” before the trash flows through two ecologically sensitive estuaries and into Galveston Bay. Robby Robinson, the field operations manager for Buffalo Bayou Partnership, the pair’s employer, described their work as “endless, thankless, no reward.”“You just gotta be a special person,” Mr. Robinson said.For Mr. Rivers, working on the Bayou is a calling. He’s been cleaning up its waterways pretty much every weekday for the past dozen years. Few people are more attuned to its inhabitants and its health.Earlier this year Mr. Rivers spotted, to his delight and relief, the first snakes he’s seen on the bayou since Hurricane Harvey wiped out much of its wildlife in 2017. He revels in the riotous colors that crowd the bayou’s banks each spring and fall, waxes rapturous about its assorted birds, rescues baby turtles from rafts of trash, and mourns the fish killed by periodic algal blooms.“It’s the whole ecosystem I’m concerned about,” said Mr. Rivers, 51. “The animals aren’t responsible for the pollution. But they’re directly affected by it.”Growing up in South Acres, a hard bitten Houston neighborhood, Mr. Rivers was a devotee of the nature show “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” and, later, “The Crocodile Hunter.”He worked a series of jobs — stocking shelves at Target, mending railroad tracks, working as a security guard, landscaper and cleaning up toxic spills after Hurricane Katrina — before getting hired to work on the bayou in 2010.A rotating cast served as deckhands on Bayou Dave’s barge until 2015, when Mr. Dennis came aboard. A former high school football player who grew up in Mississippi, Mr. Dennis adored the physicality of the job. “I’m saving the world one bottle, OK, by 16 bottles, at a time,” said Mr. Dennis, 30, who Mr. Rivers nicknamed Country Slim. “This is the best way for our children in the long run to stay healthy too.”Mr. Rivers said he’s been delighted and relieved to see the snakes slowly return to the river since Hurricane Harvey swept through in 2017.Michael Starghill Jr. for The New York TimesOpening the top hatch of the barge to reveal a brimming trash container.Michael Starghill Jr. for The New York TimesBuffalo Bayou is about 18,000 years old, and was saved from being artificially rerouted more than half a century ago, when environmentalists enlisted the help of George H.W. Bush, then a new congressman. In the 1980s, the nonprofit Buffalo Bayou Partnership was formed to maintain and create green spaces and hiking and biking trails along 10 miles of the roughly 52-mile bayou. About two decades later, a board member, Mike Garver, introduced a barge that suctioned up floating garbage, which Mr. Rivers later helped redesign after he became its captain.Mr. Rivers and Mr. Dennis have bayou trash retrieval down to an art.Their bayou-saving chariot is a 30-foot barge mottled with rust. A hardtop bimini shades its helm, a lone concession to human comfort, for the barge has no seats. A foot-wide vacuum hose rests on its bow, fastened with duct tape to another massive hose that feeds a containment area below deck.Understand the Latest News on Climate ChangeCard 1 of 5Great Salt Lake.
Whitehorse one of the only cities in the world to measure airborne microplastics
Microplastic pollution is usually associated with the ocean where it’s been widely studied, but new research shows those tiny particles can be found in the air as well, even in the Yukon. A team of researchers at Yukon University have been monitoring the amount of microplastics being deposited from the atmosphere into the air around Whitehorse over the past two years.To do this, they built metal containers, similar to fly traps, and filled them with ultra-purified water. When tiny particles fall out of the atmosphere and into the container, they get trapped in the water. The microplastic collectors, which conform to international standards of dust fallout collection, were placed in four locations around Whitehorse and swapped out monthly to get continuous data. Metal microplastic collectors containing ultra-purified water were placed in 4 locations around Whitehorse over the past couple of years and swapped out monthly to get continuous data.
Whitehorse one of the only cities in the world to measure airborne microplastics
Microplastic pollution is usually associated with the ocean where it’s been widely studied, but new research shows those tiny particles can be found in the air as well, even in the Yukon. A team of researchers at Yukon University have been monitoring the amount of microplastics being deposited from the atmosphere into the air around Whitehorse over the past two years.To do this, they built metal containers, similar to fly traps, and filled them with ultra-purified water. When tiny particles fall out of the atmosphere and into the container, they get trapped in the water. The microplastic collectors, which conform to international standards of dust fallout collection, were placed in four locations around Whitehorse and swapped out monthly to get continuous data. Metal microplastic collectors containing ultra-purified water were placed in 4 locations around Whitehorse over the past couple of years and swapped out monthly to get continuous data.
New type of toxic pollution called 'plastitar' found on Canary Islands
Photographs of plastitar at Playa Grande Beach, Tenerife in December 2021. Science of The Total Environment
Plastic pollution in the oceans. Microplastics. Oil spills. Each of these items is already a distinct crisis. But researchers in the Canary Islands have coined a term for a new type of pollution they are finding in their studies: plastitar. According to the scientists, plastitar is washing up around shores of islands and consists of tar balls, often found after oil spills, and microplastics.
New type of toxic pollution called 'plastitar' found on Canary Islands
Photographs of plastitar at Playa Grande Beach, Tenerife in December 2021. Science of The Total Environment
Plastic pollution in the oceans. Microplastics. Oil spills. Each of these items is already a distinct crisis. But researchers in the Canary Islands have coined a term for a new type of pollution they are finding in their studies: plastitar. According to the scientists, plastitar is washing up around shores of islands and consists of tar balls, often found after oil spills, and microplastics.
‘Vegan leather’: How fashion giants recast plastic as good for the planet
An influential system overseen by retailers and clothing makers ranks petroleum-based synthetics like “vegan leather” as more environmentally sound than natural fibers.It’s soft. It’s vegan. It looks just like leather.It’s also made from fossil fuels.An explosion in the use of inexpensive, petroleum-based materials has transformed the fashion industry, aided by the successful rebranding of synthetic materials like plastic leather (once less flatteringly referred to as “pleather”) into hip alternatives like “vegan leather,” a marketing masterstroke meant to suggest environmental virtue.Underlying that effort has been an influential rating system assessing the environmental impact of all sorts of fabrics and materials. Named the Higg Index, the ratings system was introduced in 2011 by some of the world’s largest fashion brands and retailers, led by Walmart and Patagonia, to measure and ultimately help shrink the brands’ environmental footprints by cutting down on the water used to produce the clothes and shoes they sell, for example, or by reining in their use of harmful chemicals.But the Higg Index also strongly favors synthetic materials made from fossil fuels over natural ones like cotton, wool or leather. Now, those ratings are coming under fire from independent experts as well as representatives from natural-fiber industries who say the Higg Index is being used to portray the increasing use of synthetics use as environmentally desirable despite questions over synthetics’ environmental toll.“The index is justifying the choices fashion companies are making by portraying these synthetics as the most sustainable choice,” said Veronica Bates Kassatly, a fashion industry analyst and critic of the industry’s sustainability claims. “They’re saying: You can still shop till you drop, because everything is now so sustainably sourced.”The Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which runs the index and counts among its members almost 150 brands, including H&M and Nike, as well as retail giants like Amazon and Target, said the index uses data that is scientifically and externally reviewed.“This is years of work to compile and put together the best available most up-to-date data,” said Jeremy Lardeau, vice president of the Higg Index at the apparel coalition. “We’re not actively pushing for the synthetic numbers to be low. We’re just collecting the data in one place.”Spools of lycra fiber at an Invista research center in 2014. Jessica Kourkounis for The New York TimesCritics counter that some of the data underpinning the index comes from research that was funded by the synthetics industry that hasn’t been fully opened up to independent examination. Other studies incorporated into the Higg Index are sometimes relatively narrow in scope, raising questions about their broad, industrywide applicability.The index rates polyester as one of the world’s most sustainable fabrics, for example, using data on European polyester production provided by a plastics-industry group, although most of the world’s polyester is made in Asia, usually using a dirtier energy grid and under less stringent environmental rules. The Higg rating for elastane, also known as Lycra or spandex, draws on a study by what was at the time the world’s largest elastane producer, Invista, a subsidiary of the conglomerate Koch Industries. (Invista sold its Lycra business in 2019.)The Higg Index itself was born a decade or so ago amid a rising emphasis among consumers on sustainability, environmental and animal-welfare concerns. It coincided with advances in synthetic-based fabrics that were not only inexpensive but had new features that buyers craved, such as improved elasticity or improvements in the ability to wick away perspiration.Many of the garment brands that sit on the board of the group that oversees the index profit from two fashion megatrends that directly benefited from advances in synthetics like these: fast fashion and athleisure. The fast fashion giant H&M, for instance, displays what it calls Higg-based sustainability profiles alongside some of its products.“Higg’s members, a lot of them are fast fashion brands, and they all use mainly polyester. So it favors them to get polyester a better rating,” said Brett Mathews, chief editor of Apparel Insider, an industry-focused publication based in London. But the data used was “very poor,” he said, and “the net result is that the actual Higg score, which says this fiber is more sustainable than that one, is misleading to consumers.”The Sustainable Apparel Coalition said company data was accurate and comprehensive, and had been collected in line with industry standards. Any gap between European and Chinese polyester production would be small compared to other differences in producing the textiles, like the knitting or weaving process, it said.H&M, which sits on the coalition board, said the index was based on “standardized and verified third party information,” and that the tool was being “continuously developed and improved.” Walmart said the Higg was not the only tool it used to improve the sustainability of its apparel, and that it continued to assess the index’s capabilities. Invista did not respond to a request for comment.The Higg Index is on its way to becoming a de facto global standard. In Europe, policymakers this year are set to lay out rules on how brands must back up their environmental claims, and in New York, a bill seeks to hold fashion brands accountable for their role in climate change. Fashion-industry officials have said the Higg Index could be used as a benchmark in both.The fashion industry has long been under pressure to address the environmental effects of its products and practices. The industry is responsible for as much as 8 percent of the world’s emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide, the United Nations estimates, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.Polyester being spun in Thailand. The Higg Index rating for the textile is based on production data from Europe, but most polyester is made in Asia, usually using dirtier energy grids.Brent Lewin/BloombergNatural materials, like cotton, have their own environmental costs, of course. Cotton and silk cultivation is water-intensive and can involve heavy pesticide use. Leather can come from well-managed ranches, or it can be tied to activities that are extremely damaging to the environment. Last year, a New York Times investigation showed how leather from cattle linked to deforestation in the Amazon was making its way to the United States to be used in automobile seats.The production of polyester and other materials has tripled since 2000, to nearly 60 million tons a year, according to the Textile Exchange, an industry group. Silk and wool have declined over the same period, and cotton has risen more moderately. Producers of natural fibers say the Higg Index has portrayed that shift as positive for the environment based on questionable data. Silk’s unfavorable rating in the index, for example, draws on a 2014 study by Oxford-based researchers of 100 silk farmers who rely on irrigation in a single state in India.That study’s lead researcher, Miguel F. Astudillo, said he hadn’t known until recently that his work had been used by the Higg Index. He said his study of Indian silk, which is mostly used domestically, was not representative of global production. “If they read the article and the results, they’d know it’s a stretch to use it for assessing silk in general,” Dr. Astudillo said.The International Sericulture Commission, which represents 21 silk-producing countries, last year filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission accusing the Higg ratings of “creating considerable damage to the natural fiber industry” and calling on the index to carry out a broader study of global production practices.“They’re saying silk is 30 times worse than synthetic products. Can anyone really believe that?” said Dileep Kumar of the International Sericulture Commission.In 2020, leather-industry groups from around the world also called on the Sustainable Apparel Coalition to suspend its poor score for leather, which the industry said was based on “out-of-date, unrepresentative, inaccurate and incomplete data.”The rise of vegan leather, which is typically made from polyurethane, a type of plastic that has a more favorable Higg rating, has brought unintended consequences, industry officials say. Even as leather is replaced by synthetics, Americans are still eating lots of beef — which means the hides from those slaughtered cattle have nowhere to go. In 2020, a record 5 million hides, or about 15 percent of all available, went to landfills, according to the U.S. Hide, Skin and Leather Association, a Washington-based trade group.“They’re throwing the hides in the offal barrels out back,” said Ron Meek, a former meat processor who has been helping smaller plants weather the downturn in leather demand.Ron Meek, a former meat processor, said the Higg Index ranked leather poorly based on an incomplete picture of leather production.Neeta Satam for The New York TimesThis year, the sole representative of an environment group on the Sustainable Apparel Coalition board of directors resigned, citing the organization’s lack of progress on environmental and climate policies, and hasn’t been replaced.“Their approach has been shrouded in a lot of secrecy. It’s not a transparent system,” said the former board member, Linda Greer, who now advises China’s Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs. “This industry, maybe more so than any other sector, is very big on talk, very big on the next exciting thing — almost as if it’s a fashion show, the season’s latest.”In response to the complaints, the apparel coalition has de-emphasized direct comparisons across fabrics and said it is helping companies to make more sustainable choices within fabrics, and to come up with specific product-based scores that take into account factory practices and other variables. It also said it would welcome the submission of additional data from natural fiber industries.Still, some experts question whether the Higg accurately reflects other factors, like emissions of planet-warming methane from the fossil fuels that plastics are derived from, the amount of non-biodegradable plastic that ends up in landfills or incinerators, or the microplastics shed by fabrics that have now been detected by scientists in the world’s oceans.The apparel coalition said this was an issue it was seeking to incorporate once better data was available.In all, experts say, relying on studies with different parameters and assumptions is tricky. A 2019 report by the Research Institutes of Sweden concluded that differences between producers could be far larger than differences between fiber types.“The devil’s in the details,” said Sangwon Suh, an expert in life-cycle assessments at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California. “It’s difficult to make generalizations. Is the cotton rain-fed, or does it use irrigation or ground water? Are the petroleum-based synthetic materials being produced in countries with strict regulations?”For consumers, all these variables make it tough to generalize about whether natural or synthetic materials are the more environmentally friendly choice, or to assess claims made by clothing brands. Experts say one of the few sure ways to minimize environmental impact is simply to buy fewer, longer-lasting pieces.The Sustainable Apparel Coalition makes the Higg scores available to the public, but full access to the underlying data is limited to companies that pay a fee.Companies can also pay a fee to submit new data to the coalition and obtain company-specific scores.Last year, for example, the Higg Index said it had updated the rating for leather from JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker and one of the companies that the Times investigation last year found was sourcing cows linked to Amazon deforestation. The new JBS-specific assessment rates leather produced by JBS as among the world’s most sustainable.JBS said it had submitted a new study to correct the apparel coalition’s “misleading analyses” on leather. “JBS also intends to contribute to elevate the quality of technical information available on leather, benefiting the entire sector,” the company said.Gregory Norris, who teaches life-cycle assessment at the Harvard School of Public Health and who carried out a review of the Higg Index methodology in 2016, said many of the critics’ concerns were valid. But the index still represented “a very valuable body of work,” he said. “They could have waited, but to their credit, they dug in and they built something with today’s data,” he said.Still, there were improvements that could be made, he said. For example, industry data could be periodically verified with independent spot checks. “There’s data scarcity problem that really needs to be solved,” he said.
‘Vegan leather’: How fashion giants recast plastic as good for the planet
An influential system overseen by retailers and clothing makers ranks petroleum-based synthetics like “vegan leather” as more environmentally sound than natural fibers.It’s soft. It’s vegan. It looks just like leather.It’s also made from fossil fuels.An explosion in the use of inexpensive, petroleum-based materials has transformed the fashion industry, aided by the successful rebranding of synthetic materials like plastic leather (once less flatteringly referred to as “pleather”) into hip alternatives like “vegan leather,” a marketing masterstroke meant to suggest environmental virtue.Underlying that effort has been an influential rating system assessing the environmental impact of all sorts of fabrics and materials. Named the Higg Index, the ratings system was introduced in 2011 by some of the world’s largest fashion brands and retailers, led by Walmart and Patagonia, to measure and ultimately help shrink the brands’ environmental footprints by cutting down on the water used to produce the clothes and shoes they sell, for example, or by reining in their use of harmful chemicals.But the Higg Index also strongly favors synthetic materials made from fossil fuels over natural ones like cotton, wool or leather. Now, those ratings are coming under fire from independent experts as well as representatives from natural-fiber industries who say the Higg Index is being used to portray the increasing use of synthetics use as environmentally desirable despite questions over synthetics’ environmental toll.“The index is justifying the choices fashion companies are making by portraying these synthetics as the most sustainable choice,” said Veronica Bates Kassatly, a fashion industry analyst and critic of the industry’s sustainability claims. “They’re saying: You can still shop till you drop, because everything is now so sustainably sourced.”The Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which runs the index and counts among its members almost 150 brands, including H&M and Nike, as well as retail giants like Amazon and Target, said the index uses data that is scientifically and externally reviewed.“This is years of work to compile and put together the best available most up-to-date data,” said Jeremy Lardeau, vice president of the Higg Index at the apparel coalition. “We’re not actively pushing for the synthetic numbers to be low. We’re just collecting the data in one place.”Spools of lycra fiber at an Invista research center in 2014. Jessica Kourkounis for The New York TimesCritics counter that some of the data underpinning the index comes from research that was funded by the synthetics industry that hasn’t been fully opened up to independent examination. Other studies incorporated into the Higg Index are sometimes relatively narrow in scope, raising questions about their broad, industrywide applicability.The index rates polyester as one of the world’s most sustainable fabrics, for example, using data on European polyester production provided by a plastics-industry group, although most of the world’s polyester is made in Asia, usually using a dirtier energy grid and under less stringent environmental rules. The Higg rating for elastane, also known as Lycra or spandex, draws on a study by what was at the time the world’s largest elastane producer, Invista, a subsidiary of the conglomerate Koch Industries. (Invista sold its Lycra business in 2019.)The Higg Index itself was born a decade or so ago amid a rising emphasis among consumers on sustainability, environmental and animal-welfare concerns. It coincided with advances in synthetic-based fabrics that were not only inexpensive but had new features that buyers craved, such as improved elasticity or improvements in the ability to wick away perspiration.Many of the garment brands that sit on the board of the group that oversees the index profit from two fashion megatrends that directly benefited from advances in synthetics like these: fast fashion and athleisure. The fast fashion giant H&M, for instance, displays what it calls Higg-based sustainability profiles alongside some of its products.“Higg’s members, a lot of them are fast fashion brands, and they all use mainly polyester. So it favors them to get polyester a better rating,” said Brett Mathews, chief editor of Apparel Insider, an industry-focused publication based in London. But the data used was “very poor,” he said, and “the net result is that the actual Higg score, which says this fiber is more sustainable than that one, is misleading to consumers.”The Sustainable Apparel Coalition said company data was accurate and comprehensive, and had been collected in line with industry standards. Any gap between European and Chinese polyester production would be small compared to other differences in producing the textiles, like the knitting or weaving process, it said.H&M, which sits on the coalition board, said the index was based on “standardized and verified third party information,” and that the tool was being “continuously developed and improved.” Walmart said the Higg was not the only tool it used to improve the sustainability of its apparel, and that it continued to assess the index’s capabilities. Invista did not respond to a request for comment.The Higg Index is on its way to becoming a de facto global standard. In Europe, policymakers this year are set to lay out rules on how brands must back up their environmental claims, and in New York, a bill seeks to hold fashion brands accountable for their role in climate change. Fashion-industry officials have said the Higg Index could be used as a benchmark in both.The fashion industry has long been under pressure to address the environmental effects of its products and practices. The industry is responsible for as much as 8 percent of the world’s emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide, the United Nations estimates, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.Polyester being spun in Thailand. The Higg Index rating for the textile is based on production data from Europe, but most polyester is made in Asia, usually using dirtier energy grids.Brent Lewin/BloombergNatural materials, like cotton, have their own environmental costs, of course. Cotton and silk cultivation is water-intensive and can involve heavy pesticide use. Leather can come from well-managed ranches, or it can be tied to activities that are extremely damaging to the environment. Last year, a New York Times investigation showed how leather from cattle linked to deforestation in the Amazon was making its way to the United States to be used in automobile seats.The production of polyester and other materials has tripled since 2000, to nearly 60 million tons a year, according to the Textile Exchange, an industry group. Silk and wool have declined over the same period, and cotton has risen more moderately. Producers of natural fibers say the Higg Index has portrayed that shift as positive for the environment based on questionable data. Silk’s unfavorable rating in the index, for example, draws on a 2014 study by Oxford-based researchers of 100 silk farmers who rely on irrigation in a single state in India.That study’s lead researcher, Miguel F. Astudillo, said he hadn’t known until recently that his work had been used by the Higg Index. He said his study of Indian silk, which is mostly used domestically, was not representative of global production. “If they read the article and the results, they’d know it’s a stretch to use it for assessing silk in general,” Dr. Astudillo said.The International Sericulture Commission, which represents 21 silk-producing countries, last year filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission accusing the Higg ratings of “creating considerable damage to the natural fiber industry” and calling on the index to carry out a broader study of global production practices.“They’re saying silk is 30 times worse than synthetic products. Can anyone really believe that?” said Dileep Kumar of the International Sericulture Commission.In 2020, leather-industry groups from around the world also called on the Sustainable Apparel Coalition to suspend its poor score for leather, which the industry said was based on “out-of-date, unrepresentative, inaccurate and incomplete data.”The rise of vegan leather, which is typically made from polyurethane, a type of plastic that has a more favorable Higg rating, has brought unintended consequences, industry officials say. Even as leather is replaced by synthetics, Americans are still eating lots of beef — which means the hides from those slaughtered cattle have nowhere to go. In 2020, a record 5 million hides, or about 15 percent of all available, went to landfills, according to the U.S. Hide, Skin and Leather Association, a Washington-based trade group.“They’re throwing the hides in the offal barrels out back,” said Ron Meek, a former meat processor who has been helping smaller plants weather the downturn in leather demand.Ron Meek, a former meat processor, said the Higg Index ranked leather poorly based on an incomplete picture of leather production.Neeta Satam for The New York TimesThis year, the sole representative of an environment group on the Sustainable Apparel Coalition board of directors resigned, citing the organization’s lack of progress on environmental and climate policies, and hasn’t been replaced.“Their approach has been shrouded in a lot of secrecy. It’s not a transparent system,” said the former board member, Linda Greer, who now advises China’s Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs. “This industry, maybe more so than any other sector, is very big on talk, very big on the next exciting thing — almost as if it’s a fashion show, the season’s latest.”In response to the complaints, the apparel coalition has de-emphasized direct comparisons across fabrics and said it is helping companies to make more sustainable choices within fabrics, and to come up with specific product-based scores that take into account factory practices and other variables. It also said it would welcome the submission of additional data from natural fiber industries.Still, some experts question whether the Higg accurately reflects other factors, like emissions of planet-warming methane from the fossil fuels that plastics are derived from, the amount of non-biodegradable plastic that ends up in landfills or incinerators, or the microplastics shed by fabrics that have now been detected by scientists in the world’s oceans.The apparel coalition said this was an issue it was seeking to incorporate once better data was available.In all, experts say, relying on studies with different parameters and assumptions is tricky. A 2019 report by the Research Institutes of Sweden concluded that differences between producers could be far larger than differences between fiber types.“The devil’s in the details,” said Sangwon Suh, an expert in life-cycle assessments at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California. “It’s difficult to make generalizations. Is the cotton rain-fed, or does it use irrigation or ground water? Are the petroleum-based synthetic materials being produced in countries with strict regulations?”For consumers, all these variables make it tough to generalize about whether natural or synthetic materials are the more environmentally friendly choice, or to assess claims made by clothing brands. Experts say one of the few sure ways to minimize environmental impact is simply to buy fewer, longer-lasting pieces.The Sustainable Apparel Coalition makes the Higg scores available to the public, but full access to the underlying data is limited to companies that pay a fee.Companies can also pay a fee to submit new data to the coalition and obtain company-specific scores.Last year, for example, the Higg Index said it had updated the rating for leather from JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker and one of the companies that the Times investigation last year found was sourcing cows linked to Amazon deforestation. The new JBS-specific assessment rates leather produced by JBS as among the world’s most sustainable.JBS said it had submitted a new study to correct the apparel coalition’s “misleading analyses” on leather. “JBS also intends to contribute to elevate the quality of technical information available on leather, benefiting the entire sector,” the company said.Gregory Norris, who teaches life-cycle assessment at the Harvard School of Public Health and who carried out a review of the Higg Index methodology in 2016, said many of the critics’ concerns were valid. But the index still represented “a very valuable body of work,” he said. “They could have waited, but to their credit, they dug in and they built something with today’s data,” he said.Still, there were improvements that could be made, he said. For example, industry data could be periodically verified with independent spot checks. “There’s data scarcity problem that really needs to be solved,” he said.