Is Rayon an Eco-Friendly Fabric? Is It Even A Fabric?
Rayon is one of those terms that everyone's heard, consumers included, but few could tell you what it means. Its name sounds like a chemical coating created by the folks that made Teflon. But isn't it an eco-friendly fabric? Is it even a fabric at all?
Rayon is often promoted as a "natural fiber," but is actually a semi-synthetic fiber derived from cellulose found in wood pulp. The process of turning cellulose into rayon is chemically intensive and creates toxic byproducts - in other words, it's naturally sourced, but unsustainably manufactured.
Technically, rayon is a fiber that can be woven into a fabric, not a fabric outright. However, the real reason you're reading this is to understand the eco-friendliness of this semi-synthetic fiber. It can be made in different ways to become more or less green - but to understand this, you have to start with the origin of rayon.
The Invention of Rayon
Rayon is often regarded as a type of synthetic silk, and that's by design. It was created as a man-made replacement for silk, as using silkworms at any scale was too difficult to sustain. In the late 1800s, the silk industry was grappling with diseases that were harming silkworms and impacting the production of natural silk.
French scientists were tasked with creating an artificial alternative to save the businesses within the silk industry, ultimately leading them to create fiber from cellulose. It was known as (and still commonly referred to as) viscose until Dupont scaled the fiber in the late 1920s under the name rayon.
Rayon has since matured into a vital product for clothing and other textiles. Raw inputs are readily available and the process of creating fabrics with rayon is relatively easy. This has led to widespread awareness and adoption of fiber across the globe.
Rayon is most often blended with other fibers and can be found in garments of all types, whether it’s underwear, athletic gear, or dresses. It’s also an affordable fabric choice that creates comfortable and versatile clothing (environmental considerations aside.)
So why are you reading about the history of rayon/viscose? To understand that its original intention was never to be eco-friendly, but to mimic the functional characteristics of silk. So any level of eco-friendliness is a byproduct of accessibility and accuracy in creating a silk alternative.
At the onset, this is how rayon was made - and how it can still be made.
The Process of Making Rayon
Rayon takes natural inputs and transforms them through chemical processes, hence the term “semi-synthetic.” Rayon is generically referred to as a cellulosic fiber, which is a reference to the plant cellulose that is used to create the final output.
To make rayon, manufacturers follow the following general steps:
Pulp and Clean: Wood pulp from trees is turned into a slurry, or a watery mixture, and then cleaned of impurities.
Dissolve and Spin: The cellulose pulp is dissolved into a viscous solution, often using poisonous chemicals like carbon disulfide. It’s then forced through tiny holes (similar to how cheese is made) and transformed into thin threads that are spun into yarn.
Drawing and Drying: The yarn is stretched (a process called “drawing”) and then dried to remove any remaining liquid. It can be used as is or combined with other yarns to create different types of fabrics.
Finishing: The final step may include treating the rayon with chemicals to add desired characteristics, like color or increased durability. It can also be cut or woven into different fabrics.
The process of making rayon is generally the same, no matter what the end goal is. But eco-friendly options exist and are available on the market today. There are two primary ways to make cellulose fiber: mechanical pulping and chemical pulping.
Mechanical Pulping: The trees used for mechanical pulping are first cut down and then fed into a grinder. The wood is broken down into small pieces, which are then turned into pulp. This process uses less water than chemical pulping and doesn’t require any poisonous chemicals.
Chemical Pulping: Chemical pulping involves using chemicals, like sulfur dioxide to break down the wood into small pieces. This process is more energy-intensive than mechanical pulping but can be used to create different types of cellulose fiber. This is the process rayon utilizes.
The first step in either process is to obtain the trees that will be turned into cellulose fiber. The type of tree will depend on the desired characteristics of the final product.
As you can see, manufacturing rayon isn't the most “natural” process. The final result shares little in common with raw materials at the start, especially through chemical pulping, where the treatments throughout the process strip the inputs down to their most basic form. And this is where eco-friendliness comes into question.
Is Rayon Environmentally Friendly?
While viscose rayon is more environmentally friendly than virgin synthetic fibers, "rayon" a term used interchangeably with viscose, isn't applauded as an eco-friendly fiber. More sustainable processes can be used to create cellulosic fibers, such as lyocell, which uses a closed-loop process.
Viscose rayon is perplexing, much like the other MMCFs (man-made cellulosic fibers) - a family of fibers that includes unique processes of creation, cupro, lyocell, and modal. The confusion lies in how they are from natural sources, but require unnatural additives to create fibers that can be spun into thread for garments.
In the world of activewear or any apparel vertical, fibers are organized primarily along natural and synthetic lines, but with MMCFs, a category of semi-synthetic fibers emerges.
Natural Fibers: From plant or animal sources, these fibers are unaltered in their raw state and require no further processing to be turned into thread. Examples include cotton, linen, silk, and wool.
Synthetic Fibers: These are man-made from petroleum products and other chemicals and polymers. Nylon and polyester are the most common examples.
Semi-Synthetic or Man-Made Cellulosic Fibers (MMCFs): These fibers come from trees and plants - they are cellulose - but require heavy chemical processing to convert them into a state where they can be spun into thread.
Thanks to viscose rayon, the pioneer of MMCFs, the mold of natural and synthetic was broken, and this fibrous crew created a category of its own. So then, since rayon isn't a natural fiber, does that mean it's not an environmentally friendly fiber?
The answer of whether rayon is eco-friendly is complicated, and deserving of a "yes and no" answer. Simply put, it can be more eco-friendly based on how materials are sourced and manufactured.
Let's have a closer look at both of those stages of the rayon journey, through the lens of sustainability. First, how the raw materials for rayon are sourced, then we'll follow by examining the environmental friendliness of manufacturing rayon.
Sourcing Rayon: The Environmental Impact
Since cellulose is the main eco-friendly component of rayon, and it can be derived from a variety of natural sources, the sustainability of rayon depends tremendously on sourcing and harvesting raw materials.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of rayon is made from wood pulp sourced from ancient and endangered forests, primarily in North America and Asia. The process of clear-cutting these forests to make way for tree plantations not only destroys the delicate ecosystems but also emits large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
All told, the harvesting and processing of wood pulp for rayon is a leading cause of deforestation, which has devastating impacts on the environment, including climate change, loss of biodiversity, and soil erosion.
Fortunately, there is a rayon-sourcing alternative that is far more environmentally friendly. And many rayon manufacturers are recognizing the demand for less harmful practices, turning to renewable cellulose sources, namely, bamboo and eucalyptus.
Bamboo: Bamboo is an incredibly sustainable plant - it grows rapidly and doesn't require the use of pesticides or fertilizers. Furthermore, bamboo harvesting is far less destructive than felling trees, as the plant can continue to grow even after being harvested.
Eucalyptus: Eucalyptus forests are managed in a way that is much more sustainable than ancient forest management. It's naturally regenerative, has a short lifecycle, requires no pesticides, and has a low demand for water and nutrients.
Manufacturing Rayon: The Environmental Impact
The chemical process used to produce rayon comes with a hefty environmental toll. There are a few key areas to focus on, to truly grasp the environmental impact of manufacturing rayon
Toxic Chemicals: Turning cellulosic fibers into pulp requires highly toxic chemicals, in the traditional viscose method. Carbon disulfide, sulfuric acid, and sodium hydroxide are common ingredients.
Water and Air Pollution: When used, they pose potential risks to both workers and the environment. This process relies heavily on water and chemicals, and those chemicals can pollute rivers, lakes, and oceans - as well as the air.
Resource Exploitation: What's more, most rayon manufacturers are located in developing countries where environmental regulations are lax, and there is little to no accountability. This makes it difficult to track the effects of rayon production on the environment, local communities, and citizens of developing areas.
To further emphasize the toxicity of viscose/rayon manufacturing, one particular worry is prolonged exposure to carbon disulfide which can cause a host of neurological issues. This has led the EPA to nearly ban the process of viscose production in the United States.
That's some serious doom and gloom for rayon - and certainly not an environmentally sound production process. So what are the options? You can improve the sustainability variables as much as possible for rayon, or seek cellulosic alternatives that are more sustainable. Let's look at each of those in more detail.
Improving the Sustainability Score of Rayon
Regardless of how sustainable rayon is, as long as it remains an affordable option for manufacturers, and consumers have any level of demand for it, the viscose process will remain. So instead of burying your head in the sand, there are ways to try and make rayon more sustainable, and certain parameters you should try to set up with your supplier.
Considerations for making rayon sourcing and manufacturing more sustainable include:
-increasing the use of certified sustainable wood sources
-using recycled cellulose where possible
-moving away from using fossil fuels in the production process
-capturing and reusing chemicals and water used in the production process.
It's important to remember that any manufacturing process - no matter how clean - will have some environmental impact, but there are certain activities that every manufacturer, even if mandated by a brand, can take to create a more environmentally friendly product.
Utilizing a More Sustainable Process for MMCFs
As mentioned prior, other cellulosic manufacturing methods, like lyocell, don't require the use of such harsh chemicals. While lyocell doesn't create the exact silk-like qualities you might get from viscose methods, it's a much cleaner process.
The lyocell process is much cleaner than the viscose method and relies on a closed-loop system, meaning all chemicals are recaptured and reused. It also requires far less water than other processes - making it a more sustainable way to produce cellulosic fibers.
The lyocell process is a vast improvement from viscose rayon, but it's not perfect, and there are still many other sustainable fiber alternatives to it.
Rayon's One Environmental Accolade.
Rayon, like all other semi-synthetic fibers, has one advantage over every synthetic fiber - semi-synthetic fibers are biodegradable. Part of the reason why synthetic fibers like polyester are terrible for the environment is that they take hundreds of years to break down.
Any petroleum-based fiber, and the resulting fabric it creates, contain plastics that end up sitting in landfills and leeching into waterways for centuries.
However, since rayon is made from cellulose, the final fabric will degrade over time. The time it will take for the fabric to decay will vary depending on source materials and manufacturing processes, but sometimes rayon can even degrade faster than cotton.
So while rayon has some serious low grades on its chemical requirements, and can sometimes source from irresponsible harvesting practices, its innate ability to degrade will remain an important environmental benefit.
Does Rayon Make Good Clothing?
This whole article has gone into the weeds of rayon's sourcing and manufacturing, focusing heavily on the sustainability characteristics of this cellulosic fiber - yet until this point, we haven't even discussed if the plant is worth the pulp. So does rayon make good clothing?
Rayon is a great fiber for creating light and airy garments to be worn in temperate weather, plus its affordability makes it highly accessible. However, rayon isn't great at wicking moisture or being durable, which makes it less than ideal for some performance apparel with intense activity.
Rayon may not have a sterling environmental reputation, but its price point and feel have made it a popular choice for clothing. Because of its inexpensive nature and the comfortable and versatile clothing it can create, rayon is ubiquitous.
It can be luxuriously soft like silk (that's how it started, remember) and it's very breathable - so while it may not wick away moisture, the lightness and breathability of rayon create a great combination of comfort.
The fabric also holds dyes well and can be made into vibrantly colorful garments. Depending on the treatment, rayon fabric drapes elegantly off the body and can be used to create flowing dresses as well.
Rayon - Great for Some Clothing, Less Great for the Environment
Rayon has a place in some casual uses of clothing, and certainly athleisure apparel, thanks to its incredibly comfortable feel, high breathability, and lightweight nature. But it's not the most sustainable fiber.
Unfortunately, the environment has suffered due to rayon production. The way rayon is sourced and manufactured requires a lot of harsh chemicals and can be detrimental to local ecosystems. Still, rayon can biodegrade, which is more than can be said for many other fibers, like polyester and spandex, which are also common material choices for sportswear.
There are still action steps that you and your suppliers can take to improve the sustainability of your sourcing, should you decide to use rayon.
If you're looking for a sustainable fiber alternative to viscose rayon, consider lyocell - it's made in a closed-loop system and requires far less water than other cellulosic manufacturing processes.
Or, for something more akin to the silky feeling of viscose rayon, consider modal - a slightly more eco-friendly process than viscose. If you're not sure where to start, reach out, and let's talk through it.
Material choice, especially eco-material choice, is an important decision.
Your consumers will continue to demand comfortable and functional sportswear but also want their purchases to be positive for the environment. It's a challenging position for your brand to be in, but not an insurmountable position.