Answer: Pure cotton is a natural fiber, and chemical fiber is artificially synthesized with petroleum and other raw materials. People will take it for granted that natural things are more environmentally friendly than synthetic ones. In some ways, pure cotton is indeed more environmentally friendly than chemical fiber. The production of chemical fiber needs more energy and water, which will produce more pollutants, and the chemical fiber waste is not easy to degrade.
But pure cotton also has environmental problems in other aspects. When planting cotton, irrigate with plenty of water and spray a lot of pesticides to kill pests. Cotton is the crop that uses the most pesticides, and about 25% of the pesticides in the world are used for cotton cultivation. Herbicide and defoliant are also used when harvesting cotton. When planting cotton needed to produce a pure cotton T-shirt, about100g of fertilizers and pesticides will be lost to water, air and soil. Every 1 kg cotton fiber needs 7000 ~ 29000 liters of water.
Pure cotton clothes absorb dirt more easily than chemical fiber clothes, so they are not easy to wash dry. Washing cotton-padded jacket requires high water temperature, which is easy to wrinkle after washing and needs ironing. All these mean that more energy is needed to maintain pure cotton clothes.
Therefore, there is no clear answer as to which is more environmentally friendly, cotton or chemical fiber.
Question: How much carbon dioxide will a cotton garment consume in its "lifetime"?
A: In its "life", a pure cotton garment needs electricity after several stages of cotton planting, cotton cloth and garment manufacturing, transportation and use. If electricity is provided by coal, it will emit carbon dioxide. According to the research of Manufacturing Research Institute of Cambridge University, a 250g cotton T-shirt consumes about 109mJ of energy in its lifetime, which is equivalent to emitting about 7kg of carbon dioxide, which is 28 times its own weight. The specific analysis is as follows:
Cotton planting needs chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and defoliants, and the production of these needs energy. In addition, pumping irrigation also consumes energy. In a word, about 1 kg of carbon dioxide will be emitted in order to obtain the cotton needed to produce pure cotton T-shirts. Using these cotton fabrics to make T-shirts, the whole production process emits about 1.5 kg of carbon dioxide. Cotton is transported from the planting site to the factory, and 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 kg of carbon dioxide. According to the washing requirements, cotton T-shirts should be washed with warm water at 60℃ in the washing machine, dried and ironed. Suppose a pure cotton T-shirt is washed, dried and ironed for 25 times, and a total of 4 kilograms of carbon dioxide will be emitted.
A piece of clothing will not only consume energy, emit carbon dioxide, but also produce garbage during its "life". If a discarded cotton T-shirt is burned in a landfill, it will leave about 3 grams of ash, and in its "life", the coal burned to provide electricity for it will also produce about 17 grams of ash and 800 grams of waste (left by coal mining).
Ordinary people in China generally don't dry clothes and have a long service life, so these figures may not be applicable to China, but they still have certain reference value. Question: How much carbon dioxide will a garment made of chemical fiber consume in its "life"?
A: The British environmental resources management (ERM) company once calculated the energy consumed by a pair of 100% polyester pants weighing about 400g during its "life". The raw materials of trousers are produced in Taiwan Province province, China, made into trousers in Indonesia, and then shipped to the UK for sale. Assuming its service life is 2 years, * * * was washed 92 times, washed with warm water washing machine at 50℃, dried with dryer after washing, and ironed for 2 minutes on average. In this way, the total energy consumed in its "life" is about 200 kWh (equal to 200 kWh). If electricity is provided by coal, it will emit about 47 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which is 1 17 times its own weight.
You may think that this pair of trousers has traveled all over China, Taiwan Province, Indonesia and Britain, which greatly increased its energy consumption. In fact, the energy consumption caused by transportation is negligible, accounting for only 0.03%. Polyester fabric is woven from polyester fiber, which is produced from petroleum. The energy consumption of this production process accounts for about 7%. The energy consumption of textile, printing and dyeing, sewing fibers into trousers and transporting them to the wholesale center accounts for about 13%. Pants are transported from the wholesale center to the retail store and displayed in the retail store, which accounts for about 4% of energy consumption. The main energy consumption is generated in the process of consumers' purchase and use, accounting for about 77%, of which washing part accounts for 37%, drying part accounts for 27%, and ironing part accounts for 12%.
Therefore, if you want to reduce the energy consumption of a garment, it is mainly in its consumption and use stage, such as reducing the washing water temperature and changing drying into natural drying. If the washing temperature of the washing machine is reduced from 50℃ to 40℃, the energy consumption can be reduced by 10%.
Question: Are leather products more environmentally friendly than artificial leather?
A: In the leather production process, not only a lot of energy and water are consumed, but also many toxic substances are used, including formaldehyde, coal tar, dyes and cyanide. In order to increase the softness and water resistance of leather, leather should be tanned. Leather cannot be biodegraded after tanning. Most leather is tanned with chromium salts such as chromium sulfate, resulting in chromium-containing waste. Skin contact with chromium salt can cause allergies and ulcers, and inhalation of chromium salt in respiratory tract can lead to inflammation. Chromium salt can invade human body through digestive tract, respiratory tract, skin and mucous membrane, and long-term exposure to chromium salt will lead to chronic poisoning. The sewage discharged from leather factories will pollute the water source and make the groundwater nearby contain high concentrations of lead, formaldehyde and cyanide. A survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the incidence of leukemia among residents near a leather factory in Kentucky was five times the national average. After many old leather factories were abandoned, the nearby areas were still not suitable for living or planting crops.
Question: Why does wearing cashmere sweater also damage the environment?
A: Many people don't know that the raw materials of sweaters and cashmere sweaters are completely different. The raw material of woolen sweater is sheep wool, and the raw material of cashmere sweater is cashmere. Although some people sell "cashmere" clothes in the market, sheep only produce wool but not cashmere. Real cashmere only comes from cashmere, which is a layer of fluff that grows on the surface of goat skin to keep out the cold in winter and falls off automatically in spring. Cashmere is light and warm, which is better than wool, and its warm-keeping performance is 8 times that of wool, but its output is very low and much more expensive than wool. A sheep can produce 2 ~ 3 kilograms of wool a year, while a cashmere goat can only produce 1 10 ~ 170 grams of wool a year on average. It takes more than 2 cashmere goats to make a double cashmere sweater, and 4~6 cashmere goats to make a cashmere jacket.
In addition, grazing goats do much more damage to grasslands than sheep. Goats use hooves to dig and destroy topsoil; Eating more than 10% of body weight every day, eating grass all the way to the grassroots level, eating all the grass, it is difficult to regenerate the grass; And can bite off the skin of saplings, so that trees can't grow. China is the country with the largest cashmere production in the world, with an annual output of about 10000 tons. In recent years, people's consumption of cashmere has increased sharply, which has led to an increase in the number of cashmere goats, which in turn has led to greater damage to grassland vegetation. Overgrazing leads to soil erosion, desertification and sandstorm. According to the World Bank's research in 2005, Ordos grassland in Inner Mongolia is the most serious area of soil erosion in the world, and the developed goat industry there is the main reason for this situation.
Question: What substances may be harmful to health and the environment in a piece of clothing?
A: There are many opportunities for clothing to be polluted by harmful substances in the production process, which will cause harm to health and the environment. When growing cotton, a lot of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and defoliants are used, so the air, water and soil are polluted, and pesticides will remain in cotton fibers and clothes made of cotton fibers. In order to make rayon, it is necessary to treat wood pulp with toxic substances such as caustic soda and sulfuric acid. When producing nylon and polyester, nitrogen oxides are released, which is a greenhouse gas more than 300 times stronger than carbon dioxide. Preservatives, mildewproof agents and moth-proofing agents should be used in the storage of textile raw materials, and oxidants, catalysts, detergents, bleaches and whitening fluorescent agents should be used in the weaving process, which may remain on clothes. Azo dyes used in printing and dyeing can cause cancer, and dyes often contain heavy metals, benzene, organochlorine and other substances harmful to health and the environment. In order to make clothes colorful, colorfast, wrinkle-free and shrink-free, a large number of dyeing auxiliaries and resin finishing agents containing formaldehyde should be added to the fabric. If it is not handled properly, a lot of formaldehyde will remain on the clothes. Fireproof nylon fabrics also contain formaldehyde. Easy-to-wear casual clothes and brightly colored, dyed and printed children's clothes are most prone to formaldehyde exceeding the standard, and will gradually release free formaldehyde during wearing, causing allergic symptoms. In order to prevent clothes from wrinkling, perfluorochemicals are added to fabrics, which is a carcinogen. When buying clothes, especially children's clothes, it is best to choose clothes that are white, light-colored, non-printed, small in pattern and without hard printing on the pattern, so as to avoid adding additional functions such as anti-wrinkle, non-ironing, waterproof and antifouling. If the clothes have irritating taste, peculiar smell and fragrance, it means that the formaldehyde content is high or there are chemical residues. Because formaldehyde is easily soluble in water, it is best to wash new clothes with water after buying them home to reduce the formaldehyde content.
Question: When buying clothes, which fabric is more environmentally friendly?
A: Organic cotton is planted without pesticides. It is more environmentally friendly than ordinary cotton, but it is more than twice as expensive. Due to the adverse impact of cotton planting on the environment, people began to look for more environmentally friendly natural fibers, such as hemp fiber, to replace it. Although natural hemp fiber is relatively thick and hard, it is only used to make ropes, coarse cloth and so on. However, hemp fiber can become soft and strong after new technology treatment and can be used for weaving. The strength of hemp fiber is four times that of cotton fiber, and the wear resistance is twice that of cotton fiber, which has advantages in mildew resistance, dirt resistance and wrinkle resistance. Compared with growing cotton, growing cannabis requires much less irrigation water, pesticides and other pesticides, so it is cheaper and more environmentally friendly. Research by the University of Melbourne shows that if hemp is used instead of cotton to produce cloth, oil and paper, its "ecological footprint" (ecological impact) can be reduced by 50%. Similarly, cloth made of bamboo fiber and flax is much more environmentally friendly than cotton cloth, because it saves water and uses less pesticides.
Some artificial fibers are also more environmentally friendly. Rayon is made of wood pulp and uses renewable trees. Compared with cotton, planting trees requires less irrigation water and pesticides. Compared with chemical fiber produced by petroleum, PLA fiber produced by corn starch can use 20% ~ 50% less fuel. Poly (lactic acid) fiber has a low refractive index, so dark color can be obtained without using a lot of dyes.
Question: How to choose "green clothes"?
A: Durable clothes are more "green" than easily damaged clothes. The most "green" clothes are those that have been hung in your closet-from the perspective of resource consumption, it is like this: buying less new clothes can reduce the materials and energy consumed in producing clothes. Of course, this is not in line with economic laws, and it is unrealistic to blindly limit people's pursuit of fashion. The influence of clothing on the environment is mainly not in the process of production and sales, but in the process of use. Washing clothes consumes a lot of water and electricity, and detergents and dry cleaning solvents can also cause environmental pollution. In order to be "green" in this respect, it is important to take good care of clothes and try to avoid getting dirty to reduce washing times.
People usually refer to "green clothing" or "ecological clothing". From the health point of view, it refers to those clothes that are harmless to human health and produced with raw materials and processes that have little or no harm to the environment. Various dyes, auxiliaries and finishing agents are needed in textile production. Some pesticides used in cotton growth will be absorbed by fibers. If these substances remain in the finished clothing, it will endanger human health. Many countries and industry organizations have formulated technical standards for eco-textiles, which stipulate the harmful substance residues (such as formaldehyde, heavy metals and pesticides), pH value and volatile substance content of textiles, and require that harmful dyes, finishing agents and flame retardants should not be used. The most authoritative one is Oeko-TexStandard 100 of the International Environmental Protection Textile Association. Products that have passed relevant certification can be labeled with Oeko-Tex, and finding this label is one of the best references for purchasing green clothes.
Question: Which is more environmentally friendly, baby diapers or diapers?
A: Diapers can be reused, while diapers can only be used once. In the eyes of ordinary people, it is natural that reusable products are more environmentally friendly than disposable products. However, reusable products also have a negative impact on the environment in the process of production and use. Diapers are made of cotton. Water, pesticides and other toxic substances are used in cotton planting and cotton production, and water, detergent and electricity are used to clean diapers. These processes consume energy and emit carbon dioxide and toxic substances. In 2005, the British Environmental Protection Agency published a report of more than 200 pages, which analyzed in detail the impact of diapers and diapers on the environment in all aspects such as production, sale, use and abandonment, and concluded that there was no difference between them. Suppose a baby uses diapers or diapers for two and a half years, and its consumption of non-renewable resources and greenhouse gas emissions are equivalent to a car driving 1300 ~ 2200 miles (about 2000 ~ 3500 kilometers).
Although diapers and diapers have similar impacts on the environment, they have different emphases. The impact of diapers on the environment mainly comes from the production of raw materials and the transformation of these raw materials into the components of diapers, while the impact of diapers on the environment mainly comes from the electric energy consumed during washing and drying. Therefore, in order to reduce the impact of diapers on the environment, to reduce the weight of diapers and improve their materials, the main responsibility lies with manufacturers; The main responsibility for reducing the environmental impact of diapers lies with consumers, who should reduce the energy consumption in the process of washing and drying diapers, such as reducing the washing temperature, increasing the amount of washing each time, using natural drying instead of using a dryer.
Question: I heard that inflatable sports shoes use materials that are harmful to the environment and are not environmentally friendly. Is it true?/You don't say.
A: The air cushion in the soles of inflatable sports shoes is filled with sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), which is a man-made gas. Under normal circumstances, it is colorless, tasteless, non-toxic, non-flammable and non-corrosive. Its density is about five times that of air. It is one of the most chemically stable substances known, and its inertness is similar to nitrogen. Due to the above and other excellent characteristics, sulfur hexafluoride has been widely used in electrical industry, metal smelting, aerospace, medical treatment, meteorology, chemical industry and other industries in recent years. Unfortunately, sulfur hexafluoride is also one of the strongest greenhouse gases, and its harm is 22,200 times that of carbon dioxide.
The production of Nike sports shoes used 288 tons of sulfur hexafluoride a year, accounting for 1% of the global total sulfur hexafluoride production. According to the American Business Weekly, the greenhouse gas carried in Nike shoes produced in 1997 is equivalent to 7 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to the exhaust gas emitted by 1 10,000 cars. After 1992 learned about the harm of sulfur hexafluoride, Nike began to study the replacement of sulfur hexafluoride with nitrogen. 14 after using sulfur hexafluoride, nitrogen air cushion sports shoes without sulfur hexafluoride were introduced in June 2006. On June 26, 2005, the European Parliament voted to adopt a proposed regulation and directive to prohibit sports shoes and other products from emitting fluorine-containing greenhouse gases.
However, the sulfur hexafluoride contained in the produced sports shoes and other products will be discharged after the products are scrapped. Question: Is there any way to save electricity by using an electric iron?
Answer: It usually takes a long time to iron clothes. The energy consumption of an ordinary electric iron is equivalent to several 100 watt bulbs. In order to save electricity, we should first reduce unnecessary ironing. For example, some clothes don't need ironing, and things like towels don't need ironing. Try to concentrate on ironing multiple clothes to avoid energy waste caused by frequent short-term use of iron.
When buying an electric iron, it is best to choose a product with adjustable 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 higher. Choosing the right temperature can achieve the most suitable ironing effect, avoid damaging clothes and improve electricity efficiency. If you need to humidify clothes when ironing, just humidify them moderately, and don't add too much water.
The ironing process should be arranged in a reasonable order, such as ironing some chemical fiber products while waiting for the electric iron to heat up, ironing cotton wool products after the temperature rises, turning off the electric iron a few minutes before the end of ironing, and ironing the remaining chemical fiber products with waste heat. If the electric iron can't adjust the temperature, it is necessary to make full use of the preheating and waste heat time. The electric iron should be turned off when not in use. Don't let the iron "burn empty", otherwise it will waste electricity and be unsafe.