It’s not just the fleece sweater.
It’s the fleece stuffed animals and lovies my kid sleeps with, cuddled up under his chin throughout the night. It’s also the blankets, hats and pants. I’m increasingly concerned about the ubiquity of fleece.
Why worry?
Because it’s plastic. And plastic is a poison. It can both cause harm due to its size and composition and act as a chemical Velcro, trapping and transporting toxic materials that shouldn’t be in a young, growing body.
I’ve wondered about this for years — ever since learning babies have significantly higher levels of plastic in their poop than adults — and even more so since giving birth to my own child. To decide what to do for myself and my family, I spent weeks talking to toxicologists, chemistry experts and professionals in the textile industry.
The upshot: Many experts agree that microplastic shedding poses risks to children, particularly through exposure to food and air. However, reasonable households and parents may reach different conclusions about how they want to handle fleece toys and clothes. Examining this opened up a new way for me to think about consumer choices, regulation and whether we can ever be rid of what we throw away.
For my family, I’m slowly reducing the fleece in our house without waging outright war.
Before I continue, first, let me tell you a little bit about my sweet and talkative three-year-old boy. He adores his stuffed animals like I adore him. The favorites are Bunny, a green, floppy rabbit, and Dancing Man, a sky-blue sea otter with a blanket-like tummy. In the morning, he wakes up and gathers all the lovies together in his arms to bring them into our bed. He tells us about dreams or disputes the animals had and gives each of us one or two to hold for ourselves. I feel lucky when I’m handed Dancing Man — but I also feel a twinge of concern.
The stuffed animal crew is made from polyester fleece, a fabric created by combining two petroleum derivatives: terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol. When these refined crude oils are blended at high temperatures, they form a new liquid chemical called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET. As it cools, the mixture grows thick and syrupy, and a machine pushes it through tiny holes in a disk, where it hardens into a string that can be knitted together.
Many fleece garments are formed from a combination of virgin polyester and recycled soda bottles, which can seem like a great thing. However, recycled plastic can retain chemicals from whatever it was recycled from. Washing fleece releases plastic fibers that flow away from our house and, whether passing through a water treatment facility or a septic system, end up in the natural world. It ultimately returns to us — to our kids — in the form of polluted water, food and air.
The average person globally is estimated to ingest up to the weight of a credit card in microplastics each week from a variety of sources. Ingested plastic is linked to a host of respiratory, digestive and reproductive problems.
In 2023, researchers found strong evidence that microplastics harm human fertility and could increase cancer risk in the digestive and respiratory tracts, according to a survey commissioned by the California Legislature that summarized 2,000 studies. In an update last year, the researchers added an additional 1,000 studies and reached the same conclusions.
“Scientists have gotten used to saying, ‘We don’t know for sure if microplastics are harming us,’” said Tracey Woodruff, a researcher in reproductive health and the environment at UCSF and one of the report authors.
That became an excuse used by industry and policymakers for not enacting regulations. Plastic pollution comes from many sources, but fabric is a large contributor to the microplastic particles found in the environment.
“I think we’re now at the point where we have enough evidence to act,” Woodruff said. “It is really mind-blowing how much comes from textiles.”
Kids’ bodies are smaller, and they crawl around on floors and put hands, feet — heck, everything — in their mouths, making them especially at risk.
“There is reason to be concerned,” Woodruff said, adding that reducing exposure to plastic is in everyone’s interest. “The production of plastic is expected to double to triple in the next 20, 30 years.”
Of the half dozen experts I spoke to, none said I should take Bunny and Dancing Man away.
“[I think] individual prized objects like a stuffy or a favorite sweater are not the things to try to eliminate,” said Megan Schwarzman, researcher and associate director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Green Chemistry, who has a young son herself.
Plastic is everywhere, and one stuffed animal is “such a tiny fraction of the real true exposure that the battle is not worth it in terms of real risk reduction to the kid,” Schwarzman said.
Children wearing or holding fleece might inhale some particles, but probably aren’t absorbing a lot of plastic through their skin, she said. A likely larger source of microplastics would be from degraded tires and paint sloughing off our roads and buildings.
Sure, his fleece is exposing him to a little bit of extra plastic, but the best short-term strategy to keep it out of his body would be to eliminate plastic from the kitchen, Schwarzman said. Store food and beverages in glass or metal. Do not microwave food in plastic. Do not reuse takeout containers, as they tend to be made from low-quality plastics.
This is currently a matter of personal choice and responsibility, but ought it to be?
I started thinking about new kitchen items to buy to cut down on plastic, but Schwarzman pushed me to think bigger. A shift toward fewer plastics and more natural materials would reduce some personal exposure and could send signals to the marketplace.
“We do a disservice when we suggest that people can solve the problem by buying different things,” she said. “It’s really putting public pressure on policymakers, [large-scale] purchasers, brands and manufacturers is what creates change.”
Greener products, she noted, come at a price premium, “and there’s no way for them to compete because plastic is really cheap.”
Currently, the environment and our bodies bear the toxic cost of manufactured materials, but the producers do not. What’s needed, Schwarzman said, is public policy that makes manufacturers responsible for a product’s true cost. California is taking a stab with SB 54, a 2022 law designed to reduce plastic packaging and increase recycling.
Industry groups acknowledge concerns about the potential for their products to harm human health and the environment but emphasize the usefulness and cost-effectiveness of plastic. They point to innovating new products and recycling as a solution for sustainability. Although only a tiny fraction of plastic produced is recycled, the process itself releases a ton of microplastic pollution.
Some people within private industry are working to influence the marketplace to reduce the production of new garments altogether. Americans are buying four times as many apparel items as we did in the 1980s, according to Andy Ruben, who launched Walmart’s sustainability efforts in 2004, which set standards for product sourcing and reducing corporate emissions.
After Walmart, he founded Trove, a company that helps businesses create a resale market so that less new stuff needs to be made for a brand to be profitable.
“We have enough clothing on the planet right this minute to dress the next six generations of humans,” Ruben said, quoting data touted by the British Fashion Council. “The best thing to do with an item you no longer need is to pass it down, sell it back, keep it in use.
“The microplastics that we’re talking about last 500 to 1,000 years. To address the root cause, we really need to talk about the amount of production.”
Changing consumption habits is a big challenge, he said. His views on the best approach to a more sustainable future have evolved over the past 20 years. He once believed that individual choices would put enough pressure on markets to drive change.
“I still believe market forces are a powerful driver for innovation and progress,” he said. “But ultimately, I think that [change] will require legislation.”
After spending an embarrassing amount of time thinking about this, I’ve identified my fleece policy.
“Clothes shed a lot in their first few washes when they’re new,” said Lisa Erdle, a biologist and toxicologist at the 5 Gyres Institute, which researches plastic pollution. “Typically, hand-me-downs or things from the thrift store have already gone through the majority of microfiber shedding.” She noted that at the end of their lifespan, when they become threadbare, shedding can accelerate again, so I’ll watch out for that.
Fleece sheets, blankets or pajamas would likely cause more fiber inhalation than holding a lovie or wearing a fleece jacket.
Laundering is the major route for fleece fabrics to shed, so I wash on cold — hot causes more shedding — and hang dry. I am also going to buy a filter that attaches to a washing machine to take out some of the microplastic particles.
Sanjay Mohanty, an associate professor at UCLA who studies microplastics, lets his kids wear fleece, but he doesn’t want them near the dryer when he opens the door. The lint trap collects a lot of plastic when the dryer is stuffed with synthetics. “I would not want my kid around, or at least I would want them to wear a mask when taking out clothes from the drying machine,” Mohanty said.
I pondered simply throwing away fleece garments once we’re done with them, but Schwarzman encouraged me to think more carefully. Giving someone a used but well-maintained fleece sweater is a win-win. It eliminates the need to buy a new one, and it’s already gone through most of its shedding, reducing pollution.
“In going to a landfill, it’s going to break down and pollute the landfill with microplastics,” Schwarzman said. “We might think of that as a safer place for it to be kind of locked away in there.”
But data from the state water board show that California landfills have a history of leaking.
“There’s no way where we can throw things away. They all come back to us,” Schwarzman said. “As long as we keep basing our material economy on hazardous substances, we can never get away from them.”
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