Another reason to choose silpoly over silnylon

[Dave @ Oware]

This only shows “cradle to gate”

No impact assessment after the use of the product. What happenes when landfilled, or reclaimed into electricity at a waste to energy plants?  Can it be recycled with the sil or PU coating. How long does the coating hold up on each material. If nylon is more absorbent,  does that mean the waterproofing coatings will stick to it longer, thus having a product with a longer serviceable life?

Since polyester is a by product of the fossil fuel industry, if we cut back on fossil fuel production will the environmental and monetary costs for polyester go up?

Is shipping materials inter continent accounted for?

Finally, is there a domestic mill that produces silicone coated polyester?

[Dave @ Oware]

“What Jon is pointing out is simply that a group of scientists who spend quite a lot of time researching the issue have found that silpoly production is probably a bit less polluting than silnylon production. ”

I did not see where they were testing silicone treated materials?

[Michael B]

A link showing process and chemical differences between Nylon 6 and Nylon 6.6. There seem to be at least 2 different processes for producing ”nylon”. I would guess that there are many different formulas for producing “nylon” depending on who is making it; for instance Robic (Hyosung) is a brand of nylon. For me, if I can, I like to know how a company is controlling its environmental footprint. Maybe Hyosung is doing something to manage the process in a way that is more environmentally friendly than some other company producing polyester.

https://oecotextiles.blog/2012/06/05/nylon-6-and-nylon-66/https://oecotextiles.blog/2012/06/05/nylon-6-and-nylon-66/

I did a little research on domestic Sil fabrics and did not get very far. RBTR definitely doesn’t stock any. It seems most fabric mills are overseas.

[Rex Sanders]

Virtually the only post-consumer materials actually recycled in the U.S. are glass, steel, aluminum, unadulterated paper, and unmixed #1 or #2 plastics. You might put other stuff in recycling bins, which the collector silently separates and burns or buries, or just dumps the entire load due to “contamination.”

Some enlightened companies like Patagonia have clothing take-back-and-repair programs, but sooner or later that garment gets burned or buried.

Even when certain overseas countries agreed to take our “recycling,” a lot of it wasn’t disposed of properly.

I don’t expect this situation to change for synthetic fabrics in the foreseeable future. Even “natural” fibers like cotton, when processed to death then coated with chemicals, resist breakdown in landfills or compost piles for a long, long time.

And this chart shows that leather, wool, cotton, and silk have serious impacts before disposal or recycling. Too bad down isn’t in that chart.

No good choices, just less bad. And we always seem to be missing other impacts.

Whether polyester or nylon :-)

— Rex

[Geoff Caplan]

On the other hand, before we flagellate ourselves too much, ours is a relatively low impact passtime.

I know people who are into powerboating, ocean cruising, motorsports and private flying, for example.

Our main environmental “crime” is probably our travel to the trailhead. Once we hit the trail we are relatively low impact.

Compare our little tarps to, say, the manufacture of a typical 40 ft blue water sailboat, with ongoing changes of sails, diesel fuel consumption, coats of antifouling paint…

[Jon Solomon]

Flagellation is unnecessary and in any case won’t be of any benefit to the environment. Personally, I lament that so many important issues today have been reduced to occasions to shame others.

This is way off topic but I don’t drive, period. To get to “the trailhead,” I either step out the front door or take public transportation. I’m fortunate to live in a place where such transportation still exists, but it’s been drastically reduced over the past decade in France, like practically all other public services.

Less bad choices are better choices. Even better than the less bad choices is creating the desire for more and more choices that are less and less bad.

So far people in this thread have listed a number of them, ranging from consuming less to mobilizing for effective government regulation. The right answer is probably that we need all of them, together.

[Sam Farrington]

Jon,

Re:  “Once again, this thread is about the environmental impact of nylon vs. polyester.”

“Now let’s get back to talking about silpolypropylene!”

Is it some or all of them that you have in mind?

Just guessing, but given polypropylene’s lesser detriment to the environment, that may be what you’d like to talk about.

Unfortunately, woven polypropylene, or olefin, or oly-fun as Walmart and Joanne’s Fabrics call it, is used to upholster outdoor furniture and is a bit heavy for superlight backpacking, the polestar of these forums.

Non-woven prolypropylene, however, has burst upon markets worldwide for use in protective masks, and can be very light in the same ranges as DCF.  It can be ordered as yard goods from Amazon and other suppliers.  For example:

Amazon.com: Polypropylene Fabric, Waterproof Fabric, Non-Woven Fabric, Disposable Waterproof Non-Woven Fabric 95% Thickened DIY Handmade Material Blue

(Hyperlink may not be working tonight.)

A first consideration has been protection of supplies for medical use and protection against infection.  But lately there is so much of it being manufactured, some expressly not for medical use, that may not be an issue.

The next issue might be the performance of the ‘spun bonded’ material in tent canopies.  So I dug out one of my used masks from the trash and found that it is an extremely strong material, even in very light weights.  Amazon and some others also market it as ‘waterproof,’ and there are photos online of water being poured on it without effect.  However, I’m not aware of any HH tests to see just how waterproof it is.  It is not as water absorbent as nylon, but neither is polyester.  So as your use of the term “silpolypropylene” suggests, I think methods for application of coatings would be necessary.

Also, as a devotee of woven fabrics for tents, I’d be more interested in coating a very light weight, high thread count olefin.  The advantages of woven fabrics for tents have been discussed at great length on BPL by the forum moderator, Roger Caffin; so I won’t repeat them here, as it can be a lengthy discussion on a topic outside the scope of this thread.

For the time being, I think I’ll stick to silpoly, even if it means a small weight penalty compared to nylon.  Because I’d like to live long enough to finish my next tent.

[Jon Solomon]

Hey Sam, the reference to polypropylene was a joke made by Rex Sanders in an earlier post.

[Sam Farrington]

Missed it.  However, it may eventually be the answer to a woven fabric that competes favorably in weight and durability with DCF.

[Dave @ Oware]

In regards to that table, it is lacking in the greater picture. If it were cradle to cradle, as in a circular economy, the gate to cradle part would likely be the reverse and the natural fibers would likely be much more sustainable in many categories.

As far as fabric used for light backpacking shelters, the coatings used on polyester fabrics appear to be only available overseas where there is no EPA oversight.

[HkNewman]

recycling,” a lot of it wasn’t disposed of properly.

There was a program on landfill recycling technology pilot program,… where any sort of plastic was cleaned, re-melted, and then extruded into shapes (in this case, plastic containers for moving which were rented to minimize their return to the waste cycle).   I’d think any heat high enough to break the mostly C-H single bonds/various polymers and monomers/etc..  in a variety of plastics would work on silicon as well.  The tech is either there or pretty close.

It’s getting the economic setting right (more economical to mine from landfills and go overboard on recycling vs. processing “virgin“ materials)

[Dave @ Oware]

My understanding is that many plastics are made using byproducts of the petroleum industry. So in a way they are already up cycled . After reduction in consumables, recycling again and again would seem to be best. Mining landfills sounds good too. Where the landfill is located would have bearing on the overall pollution footprint. For example my city’s landfill is 250 miles away. In that case the upfront CO2 and $$ cost to transport waste to the landfill is substantial. At this time the landfill is capturing methane gas and turning that to energy.

 

 

[Jerry Adams]

PBS Nova – recent episode about indestructable elements

they mentioned a plastic PHA

it’s made from bacteria

bacteria also consume it

it they can make this commercial, that could be a solution to requiring fossil fuels to create and waste plastic in the environment, like in the ocean

a lot of our clothes lose material very time they’re washed.  The fibers go down the drain.  There’s no way to filter them out.  They go into the ocean.  They degrade very slowly there.

and all the other plastic we produce

[Author]

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