Theme

The mean ones: Shell Jackets

Shell Jackets are a must add to any outdoor wardrobe. But when it comes to responsibility, these jackets are also one of the most environmental harmful in the productional phase and in the consumer phase. Let's take a closer look.

Theme on Responsibility

Let's admit it and not wrap it in. The apparent truth about shell jackets are that they are not good on any environmental issues.

The water and ozone depletion is high in the productional phase, the caring for the product exhausts the water resources in the local environment due to hard washing and for many years the making of the membranes has been filled (and still are) with Teflon, which is hormone-disrupting and carcinogenic.

Shell Jackets are though a very needy item in any outdoor wardrobe as it has the capabilities to protect you against the changing times of the weather as you use the products on your adventures and everyday life.

As said in our last theme (A Responsible Outdoor Wardrobe) polyester products are still in general made from environmentally disastrous fabrics. Polyester/Nylon is a synthetic material made from plastic, and it can take shape like many different types of fabric; eg. can polyester look like viscose or even wool.

Basically, polyester consists of oil and natural gas, which are converted into plastic through advanced chemistry. The plastic is then further processed so that it is converted into the synthetic fibers that make up the polyester fabric, which can be used as your new hard shell jacket for skiing or hiking.

But, due to the shell jackets durable surface and membrane it is possible to get a shell jacket and still take of the environment.

The making of

The shell Jacket

The environmental impact is significant

Without numbers, the shell jackets takes the prize as the most harmful products on all categories for jackets. This is very much because of the washing , spinning and dying process in the productional phase and in the consumer phase it is because of washing and caring for your jacket every month.

There are four major impactful categories in the making of a shell jacket:

Face fabric (rPET) 18,3%

Membrane (PU) 12,6%

Buttons (Brass/Cu) 17,1%

Sewing: 11,3%

We are not telling you any carbon emission results in this theme, because it would be an estimate based on general data available.

These categories are the core basics of what makes a shell jacket and not any of the categories can be dispensed.

Impact results

Production of a Shell Jacket

Face fabric (rPET) 18,3%

Membrane (PU) 12,6%

Buttons (Brass/Cu) 17,1%

Sewing: 11,3%

Polyester: A closer look

It's clear that the polyester is a very impactful fabric to make to our planet, so let's dig further into the polyester and what makes the impact so significant.

Recycled vs non-recycled material

The difference is noticable

The test results are from our theme on A Responsible Outdoor Wardrobe.

On the polyester products it showed us a big impact on the environment. But it also showed us that due to a significant higher ozone depletion if we made the products in virgin polyester (at a stunning 808% increase making the Ameland in virgin polyester and an increase at 194% on the Wavecrest for the ozone depletion) we are on the right path making products in certified recycled polyester.

The Ozone depletion is at a higher value with virgin polyester due to the extraction and making of plastic for the products which contains the environmental damaging Terephtalaic acid (damaging to environmemt and people).

The Freshwater Eutrophication* is also critical, mkaing a product non-recycled instead of certified recycled. Here you can see an increase of 194% in the eutrophication, which is an environmental critical issue.

*Freshwater Eutrophication is a word used for freshwater lakes and groundwater that contains to much nutrient salts such as phosphorus and nitrate, which are hormone-disrupting.

Impregnate instead of washing

Washing your products is also a big sinner. The water resource depletion of washing increases with more than 1041% on a hard shell jacket if you wash your jacket more than 10 times pr. year or like most suppliers & brands are recommending.

Conclusion on the results

1. The results shows us that making recycled products is not the savior of the environment. But it is a better alternative.

2. Making the products abroad is not the biggest impactful category and often a production in Europe is more impactful, because you will have to ship the fabric across many countries before the processing of the metered goods.

Almost all impactful categories are increasing when making new polyester products.

3 advices for buying your next shell jacket

Impregnate instead of washing

Due to the significant high amount of water depletion which is quite impactful on our planet we encourage you to wash your products less and impregnate them instead with a bio impregnation spray to keep the lamination and membrane water repellant.

Certified Polyester/Nylon

It's not enough to just look for "recycled" when shopping. To be sure, that your product comes from landfill material and is collected correctly it needs to be certified (like the GRS certification).

The recycled fabrics has a siginifcant lower impact to environment when you are not using Terephtalaic acid to make virgin polyester.

For midlayer jackets the results showed us a decrease of 800% in the impact to ozone depletion.

Breathability & Waterproof Ratio

Stop thinking that you need the highest possible waterproof resistance. If you want a shell jacket to be great for decades, you need one that is waterproof and breathable at the same time. A significant higher waterproof ratio than 35.000 mm lowers the breathability rate because of the windstopping effect and because the fibers are simply so tight in the fabric.

For alpine skiing you need 20-30.000 mm. in waterproof ratio and 20.000 gr/sqm/day breathability.

thanks for reading

Thank you

Thank you for reading this theme. The results validation and method is found down below. If you have any questions to the methods please contact us at info@superstainable.com.

Yours sincerely,
Emil Rasmussen
Co-Founder

Data validation

*(The programme used for modelling and the results was SimaPro)

*(Method used for analysis: ILCD 2011
Midpoint+
Using system expansion and
consequential modelling
Normalization done in corespondance
to a European citizen)