Fast-Fashion Polyester T-Shirt
150g adult tee, 100% polyester
A polyester tee is a wearable plastic bottle: 150g of virgin PET spun into fibre. Each wash sheds hundreds of thousands of microfibres, and blended garments are almost never fibre-to-fibre recycled.
Material breakdown
3 components- Polyester (PET) fibre147g
- Polyester sewing thread2g
- Printed care label & neck tape1g
Production footprint
Per unitEstimated upstream manufacturing footprint per unit, based on resin LCA averages.
Lower-impact alternatives
- Organic cotton t-shirtNo synthetic fibre, no microplastic shedding, compostable at end of life.0gplastic
- Second-hand teeReuse avoids the whole production footprint.0gplastic
- Recycled polyester tee with a wash bagView product →Same fibre, lower virgin resin; a wash bag catches most shed fibres.150gplastic
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References for this item
Peer-reviewed studies and institutional reports behind the figures above.
- Analysis of the polyester clothing value chain to identify key intervention points for sustainability ↗Palacios-Mateo, C., van der Meer, Y. & Seide, G. (2021) · Environmental Sciences Europe, 33(1), 2
Cradle-to-grave analysis of polyester garments: fibre production energy, dyeing and finishing impacts, and end-of-life fate. Primary basis for our polyester weights and energy figures.
- The contribution of washing processes of synthetic clothes to microplastic pollution ↗De Falco, F., Di Pace, E., Cocca, M. & Avella, M. (2019) · Scientific Reports, 9, 6633
Measures microfibre release per wash for polyester, polypropylene and polyamide garments, the basis for our shedding notes.
- A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning fashion's future ↗Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2017) · Ellen MacArthur Foundation
System-level data on garment lifespans, collection rates and the share of clothing recycled into new clothing (<1%). Backs our end-of-life percentages.