Within the bottle processing plant in Reidsville, North Carolina, drifts of plastic particles, like snow banks, are piled in each nook of the equipment that chops the bottles into flake. After I ask our tour information, a flooring supervisor, if he worries about respiratory it in, he says he does not. “We do job of cleansing it up,” he says, including that the luggage of mud which can be vacuumed up are offered off, and the wastewater is filtered.
However I’m involved. A 2023 research of a UK plastics recycling plant discovered that even after the set up of state-of-the-art filters, round 6 p.c of the plastic being processed was launched into the wastewater as micro and nanoplastic, whereas the air across the facility was stuffed with microplastics sufficiently small to be hazardous to human well being.
Scientists are nonetheless puzzling out what microplastics do to our well being, however one research discovered that individuals with IBS tended to have extra microplastics, together with PET and polyamide (of which nylon is one kind), of their intestine. Whereas PET appears to be one of the vital benign out of all of the plastics, at the least two research have discovered BPA, a hormone-disrupting chemical, in polyester child clothes, and a lot of manufacturers agreed to a settlement with California lawmakers in 2023 over the presence of BPA in polyester athletic shirts.
As well as, water utility managers in Reidsville have alleged that Unifi and different polyester producers might be probably be sources of 1,4-dioxane, a possible human carcinogen, within the Cape Worry watershed, which offers consuming water for over 1 million individuals because it flows from central to southeast North Carolina. Technically, that’s not unlawful (particularly since Unifi, together with different industrial sources and a number of other cities, efficiently lobbied in opposition to a North Carolina rule limiting 1,4-dioxane in wastewater). As a result of 1,4-dioxane is a byproduct of producing PET resin, the EPA declared in late 2024 that nearly any publicity to 1,4-dioxane constitutes an unreasonable danger to the well being of polyester staff and surrounding communities. There are (very expensive) methods to deal with wastewater for 1,4-dioxane, so how ensuing laws would have an effect on Unifi stays to be seen, particularly because the EPA doesn’t at present appear eager to do any regulating of poisonous chemical publicity.
Ingle and Boyd each declined to talk intimately about these points. In individual, they cited the recommendation of Unifi’s counsel (BPA), mentioned Unifi follows all laws (1,4-dioxane), or pled ignorance (microplastics). Comply with-up inquiries to Boyd went unanswered. Ingle responded to follow-up questions through e-mail by writing, “We keep energetic participation in The Microfibre Consortium, in an effort to assist tutorial and trade analysis into the supply and affect of fiber fragmentation from textiles into the pure surroundings.” And “We’re compliant with all native, state, and federal laws for all of our websites.”
To advocates, every micro-scandal is proof that there is no such thing as a environmentally pleasant polyester. “We will not do that sustainably in a unhazardous method, it is actually not possible,” Pecci says.
However I left the Repreve plant questioning if we’re letting excellent be the enemy of excellent American jobs. Polyester will proceed to be in demand, and it’ll both be made right here in a compliant manufacturing unit utilizing recycled sources, or overseas in a sketchy manufacturing unit utilizing recent petrochemicals. Pecci says she doesn’t need to “name out that firm or these individuals, as a result of they may be the nicest individuals on this planet doing the very best they’ll with what they’ve.” She described for me a utopia by which unhazardous and pure clothes is all made right here after which composted and recycled right here. Sounds attractive, and not possible.
In February of this 12 months, Unifi introduced it was closing its Madison, North Carolina, polyester processing plant. It could ship a few of its equipment to its Latin American crops, and provide the Madison workers new job alternatives on the Yadkinsville and Reidsville crops, which stay in service.
For now, anyway.
