What is Sustainable Yarn?
It is generally assumed that most of us know what sustainable means. For clarity, Miriam Webster defines sustainable as:
of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged
of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods
Sustainable Yarn then would ensure it is not made of a resource that permanently damages, or from a source that is depleted; and the methods related to creating the yarn do not exploit people, places or things. For me, sustainable yarn means the fiber itself is made from an available and abundant eco-friendly resource, it is made using carbon-neutral or negative processes, and the workers or farmers involved in the making of the yarn are not exploited. Additionally, and this depends on where you live in the world, the journey from source to hook is not carbon-intensive. Meaning, the location the primary fibers or constituent ingredients the yarn is made from are not terribly far away from where the consumer will be purchasing or using the yarn.
This last item is incredibly tough to reconcile in a way that meets sustainability terms. The large majority of supply chain logistics looks like a spider web across the globe. How do we source eco-friendly, sustainable yarns that did not travel around the globe several times to get to my hook? My goal is to dig deep and define how different fibers are made into yarn, and how we can better source them locally.
The goal here is not to guilt you into burning all your stash, the goal is to educate and share our learnings so together we may collectively move the needle a little bit more towards the sustainable side of consumption. No yarn is the perfect answer (there is no holy grail) but I simply want to further educate myself and share with the fiber crafting community to help us all make better choices toward the goal - knowing and accepting it’s a process and a journey, not an ultimate destination. (Although maybe… someday? One can hope.)
There are several aspects to yarn fiber that determine its sustainability:
Locality (where it’s made/sourced)
Fiber Content (synthetic, animal, plant)
Manufacturing Process (chemical input, dyes, machinery, water intensity)
Labor Practices (farmers, workers; fair pay, work environment, quality of life…)
Supply Chain Logistics (the journey of the product from initial source to manufacturing and distribution and ultimately to consumer)
Lifespan (biodegradability, downstream impacts)
Consumer Access (availability based on location, affordability)
These are the general guidelines I will use in this series defining the sustainability of all the different fiber types. The goal here is to share what I can learn so that you as a fellow crafter can also be informed and together we can support each other in finding and sourcing more sustainable yarns around the globe, as well as encourage each other to make better choices. For liability reasons, I will not be discussing specific yarn brands in terms of sustainability - only fiber types. In the future, my hope is to create a compendium of sustainable yarn brands that are located around the world so together we can create an easy reference of sustainable yarn choices, no matter where you live. Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a quick resource list of sustainable yarns to refer to when choosing yarn subs for each project? Indeed, that would be sweet. Stay tuned as we learn more!