Part 1: The Yarn Situation (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Interrogate My Fibre Choices)
Let’s address the acrylic elephant in the room, shall we?
You know the one. It’s sitting there in your stash, possibly in a shade called “Passionate Plum” or “Ocean Mist,” and it cost £2.50 for 400 meters, and every time you look at it, a small voice whispers: But what about the microplastics?
Here’s the thing about crochet sustainability that nobody wants to say out loud: it’s complicated, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something (probably £45 skeins of hand-dyed organic merino).Don’t get me wrong, that is a beautiful product, but on my budget, it’s a dream.
The Acrylic Conundrum
Yes, acrylic yarn is plastic. Yes, when you wash that granny square blanket, tiny synthetic fibers escape into the water system, eventually finding their way into oceans, fish, and presumably, via some cosmic irony, back into our bodies. A single wash of synthetic textiles can release up to 700,000 microfibers. That’s… not great.
But here’s what the “just use natural fibres!” brigade often glosses over:
Acrylic is accessible. When you’re on a tight budget, making a blanket from 100% wool costs approximately the same as a small car payment. Acrylic means people who can’t drop £200 on yarn can still participate in this craft, can still make things, can still experience the genuine mental health benefits of crochet. Sustainability that’s only available to the wealthy isn’t really sustainability – it’s just expensive.
Acrylic is practical. It’s machine washable. It doesn’t felt. It doesn’t trigger wool allergies. For baby blankets, hospital donations, items for people with sensory issues, or anything that needs frequent washing, acrylic often makes sense. A sustainable item that never gets used because it’s too precious or too scratchy isn’t actually serving anyone.
Not all acrylic is created equal. Some manufacturers are working on recycled acrylic yarns, and while they’re still synthetic, at least they’re keeping plastic bottles out of landfills. It’s not perfect, but it’s something. So I’m still buying acrylic, just choosing to pick only the recycled versions (more about that at a later date).
The “Natural” Isn’t Always Noble
Now, before we all run off to exclusively crochet with organic cotton and hemp, let’s talk about the fact that “natural” doesn’t automatically mean “sustainable.”
Cotton is a thirsty beast. It takes roughly 20,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of cotton. In regions already facing water scarcity, cotton farming can be environmentally devastating. Then there’s pesticide use – conventional cotton farming accounts for a disproportionate amount of agricultural pesticide use globally. Organic cotton is better, but it still needs water. Loads of it.
Wool seems perfect, right? Renewable, biodegradable, comes from adorable sheep? Well, yes, but also: the fashion industry’s demand for merino has led to some questionable farming practices. The environmental impact of sheep farming – methane emissions, land use, water consumption – isn’t nothing. And mulesing (revolting! a procedure involving removing strips of wool-bearing skin from sheep’s backsides) is still practiced in some regions, which is about as unpleasant as it sounds.
Bamboo sounds eco-friendly until you learn that most “bamboo yarn” is actually rayon, which involves some fairly aggressive chemical processing. The bamboo plant itself is sustainable, but turning it into yarn? Less so. There are closed-loop processes that recycle the chemicals (lyocell/Tencel), but they’re more expensive and less common I have a blog post on a tencel yarn – here ………..).
So What’s A Conscientious Crocheter To Do?
This is where it gets interesting, because the answer isn’t maybe just “buy the right kind of yarn” – it could be “change how you think about yarn entirely.”
The most sustainable yarn is the yarn you already have. Yes, even the acrylic. Especially the acrylic that’s been sitting in your stash since 2019, waiting for the perfect project. Using what exists – even if it’s not the “perfect” eco-choice – is better than buying anything new, even if that new thing is organic hemp blessed by sustainable-farming druids.
The second most sustainable yarn is secondhand. Which brings us neatly to…https://indieheartcrochet.com/the-crochet-sustainability-deep-dive-a-4-part-love-letter-to-yarn-that-doesnt-wreck-everything-2/