Nafeesah Attah is a self-proclaimed "OG fast fashion shopper."
Attah, a lawyer and social media influencer, would typically go after the best deal, not paying much attention to the quality. But her clothes were shrinking, fading and losing shape after a few washes. She decided she would start investing more money and time into curating a higher-quality wardrobe, even if it meant buying fewer clothes.
She began to read the fabric content labels before purchasing new clothes, she said. And she noticed something. So many of the clothes in her closet and offered by retailers where she shops were made out of fabric containing polyester.
"Once you know better, it's like your eyes are opened up to the fact that there's just so many poorly made clothes out there," she said.
She's one of many consumers on social media becoming curious about this synthetic textile that dominates the world of fashion. With the cost of living increasing, they have expressed their frustration at companies charging hundreds of dollars for garments containing polyester. They wonder if they're getting what they pay for, and the impact it could have on human health and the environment. But is polyester's mixed reputation justified?
Why is polyester so common?
Your eyes don't deceive you. The use of polyester has ballooned with time, according to Henry Navarro Delgado, an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University's school of fashion.
It's partly because polyester can be quite useful, he said. It is a type of plastic made from petroleum compounds that are cooled and stretched into yarn, according to Michael Palladino, a fashion industry veteran and lecturer at Kingsborough Community College's business of fashion program in New York.
Polyester can give garments unique silhouettes, make them less prone to wrinkling and hold up well against wind and water.
The textile's weatherproofing properties led the military to begin using polyester during World War II, for things like windbreakers and camouflage covers for vehicles. After the war, manufacturers wanted to find ways for civilians to use it.
The rise of fast fashion, starting in the 1990s, has made polyester seemingly unavoidable, Navarro Delgado said.
"Fast fashion is a fire that can't be fed fast enough," Palladino said.
It's a symbiotic relationship between consumers and businesses. Navarro Delgado says consumers aren't as willing to care for their clothes as they once were. For example, wool typically has to be handwashed, while water may damage silk. They also want to be up on trends.
Retailers want to meet the demand for those trends and keep expenses low. Polyester is how both parties meet in the middle, since it's often easier to maintain, and cheaper to manufacture and buy.
"It's a shared responsibility," Navarro Delgado said.
Natural fibers, like cotton, can be resource-intensive. For example, it takes about 700 gallons of water to get one cotton T-shirt from the farm to the store. But unlike natural fibers, polyester is not biodegradable. Furthermore, the petroleum compounds used in the textile are made from fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases during production.
The rise of wellness influencers who denounce the plastic-derived fabric has made buying polyester seem like a moral failing, said Ryan Marino, a medical toxicologist and assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University. But sometimes, that's just what people can afford.
"Let's say you're buying a top for $12 in New York City. You've got a budget and that's what your budget will stand, so you buy it," Palladino said.
How does polyester affect the environment?
Though polyester has been around for a while, in many cases, manufacturers have begun using polyester for items natural fibers would be better suited for. For example, polyester is often found in summer clothes, even though the material traps heat, Navarro Delgado said.
"When you don't have access to a product that is effectively designed for its purpose, then you don't use it. You discard it," he said.
As a result, mounds of abandoned clothing are showing up on coastlines in countries like Ghana, India and Chile, Palladino said. Ghana, for example, has a large market for upcycling clothes. But many of the clothes it receives from the U.S. are of increasingly lower quality, so some purchasers dump them in lagoons and landfills, which end up in the oceans, Palladino said.
"We don't see it here but it shows up somewhere else," he said. "It's almost like reverse colonialism. We're now giving back what we don't want."
Even the polyester clothes people keep can leach microplastics into the environment when they're washed, said Aron Stubbins, a professor of marine and environmental sciences at Northeastern University.
"That flows away and has to be treated and hopefully gets taken out … but not always," he said. Microplastics can then end up in local water supplies, he said.
Polyester can be recycled into other clothes. But even recycled materials end up in landfills. Polyester can also take decades, and even centuries, to break down. Still, it doesn't go away, but disintegrates into smaller pieces, known as microplastics, some of which are invisible to the naked eye, Palladino said.
"When you get closer, it's the sweater you didn't want, it's the pants you didn't want," he said.
There are studies acknowledging and identifying the excessive amount of microplastics lingering in the environment. But there aren't many studies that draw conclusions about how all this microplastic is affecting our health and the health of our planet, Stubbins said.
"For lots of that research, we're kind of at the point of understanding just where the plastics are, and then once we understand where they are, trying to figure out what impact they're having," he said.
Still, brands and manufacturers have started responding. In a 2024 annual report, Adidas said it had set a goal in 2017 to use recycled polyester 100% of the time "wherever technically possible by the end of 2024" because it had a "lower environmental impact" than "virgin" polyester. The company noted that it had achieved 99% of the goal.
On its website, Patagonia said it wanted to stop using virgin polyester by the end of 2025 due to its "high environmental cost." The company told NPR about 94% of the polyester it currently uses is recycled.
How does polyester affect our health?
We are exposed to plastics through our clothing, air and water, Stubbins said.
Some claims online say exposure to polyester can cause cancer and infertility. However, it has not been proven that polyester causes infertility in humans, Marino said.
Manufacturers may add various types of PFAS, also known as "forever chemicals," to polyester, to help it repel water, grease and dirt. PFAS have been linked to cancer, but Marino thinks most people are unlikely to get cancer by being exposed to the plastics in polyester, whether through clothing, air or water.
"Unless you are living near a landfill, or dealing with large quantities of polyester … you are not going to encounter a dose of those compounds that is likely to cause significant health concerns," Marino said.
Marino said there's a lot we don't know about polyester's effects on humans. But at the very least, it can trigger skin irritation, he said.
In California, Proposition 65 requires businesses to put labels on products that could contaminate water sources with chemicals known to cause cancer and reproductive harm. As a result, the labels may appear on garments at national retailers.
"It's a well-intentioned thing that they do, but the Proposition 65 sometimes does not accurately reflect the risks associated with these things," Marino said.
Stubbins acknowledges this, and says ideally, businesses would be required to list the amount of the chemicals in clothing with the label to improve risk assessment. But on the other hand, the warnings are a valuable consumer tool, as they give consumers a level of transparency they may not get otherwise, he says.
"I would trust those labels, and sometimes they're the only indication to use that there is some concern around a product," he said.
What to keep in mind when shopping for clothes
All polyester is not created equal.
Cheaper polyester items are often made without quality control, and in countries with lax manufacturing regulations, Navarro Delgado said. One style of clothing could be made in several different countries, making consistency hard to achieve, he said.
Buying higher-end goods could help some, as luxury companies often have a representative at warehouses doing quality checks. But "for somebody who is not trained, it is very hard to know" the quality of polyester you're getting, Navarro Delgado said.
Palladino recommends reading books about textiles and going to fashion exhibits at museums. You can also ask yourself specific questions when you're buying clothes: What do you want to use the garment for? What happens to it after it's disposed of? How much did the people who made it get paid?
And if you're concerned about keeping polyester out of landfills, it's valuable to learn to mend your clothes instead of replacing them, Navarro Delgado said.
"The general population, we have lost a lot of touch with craft," he said.
But some people are doing their part to get it back.
"I'm always the person touching the clothing and removing it from the hanger, and then lifting it up and checking that fabric in composition to see what it's actually made of," Attah, the influencer, said.
Attah still buys polyester clothing, but only if she really loves it, and typically if it is no more than about 50% of an item's composition. But more often, she's opting for natural fibers. Palladino says his students are doing the same.
"It might have cost you a little more, but you're going to have it longer," Palladino said. "You're going to cherish it, and I think that's the word people have to start thinking about."
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