Recycled Polyester. Is it just me?

[SpongeBobJudgeyPants]

Or is it optimistic to think that a 60% wool, 40% recycled polyester jumper will be ok? I believe it will not wear well, it will bobble/pill terribly within about 3 mins of first wear, and will then be discarded, to at best, a charity shop, or maybe straight to or indirectly to landfill, as it will become an unwearable rag, despite having a price point of about 80 quid.

There are loads of them about at the moment. I know we need to recycle stuff, and I've bought a gillet that's recycled polyester. That's fine. It won't forever be in the wash, and it is an obvious nylon fabric. Great for fabric bags, etc. But jumpers? No, I think not, unless I'm missing something?

Have you got a link? At least it’s part recycled - a lot of stuff barely makes it through one season these days

The recycled polyester will have been melted down and respun, so don't worry about that.
What annoys me are jumpers with polyester in them at all! A pure will jumper would be much warmer.

Yes, I agree re the wool. I can cope with a bit of something else in it, but 40% is a lot for the price point IMHO.

This is the sort of thing I mean, though this is 30% recycled and a higher price point. I'm not picking on Seasalt particularly. Other retailers are doing this too.
here

Inflation? That’s £70 even with the usual near constant discounting, agree steep. I don’t think I’d pay more than £40-£50, it does look like cost cutting whilst hiking prices.

I agree its steep. I get blue light discount, which makes it a little better, but still...

Doesn't the mixed materials make it more robust and wash better?

I try to avoid recycled polyester as much as possible as it is often made from plastic bottles which can go on being made into more plastic bottles but essentially die once they are made into clothes. Wool is a great sustainable fabric so it’s a shame it gets mixed with polyester in a jumper 🤷🏻‍♀️ unless it’s socks which need a bit of nylon to last

I’m presuming that it also means the wool can’t be separated out to be recycled once the jumper comes to the end of its useful life? At least the wool will compost down in landfill though unlike the polyester. I’m getting a bit peed off with having to check the fabric content even in higher end high street shops to make sure I’m not being sold an £130 polyester dress (looking at you French Connection).

Don't know about the possible recycling separation going forward. I know from reviews on M & S jumpers that the recycled stuff combinations don't wash well, and garments were unwearable very quickly. I don't want to be de-bobbling before every wear, it's a tedious process. And that in itself uses energy, albeit battery, so has an environmental cost anyhow.

I'm trying to not buy polyester recycled or not, and acrylic which i haven't brought for two years now.

If the yarns are twisted together as separate wool and polyester then it could be recycled. If they are spun as one yarn using the two blended together then it can’t be recycled.

Some polyester/nylon can be useful as it stops it wearing away at the elbows as fast.

l would buy it with 10% polyester.

Big fan of recycling but just to say in the UK plastic bottles are not generally recycled into food packaging. The food containers that you see that are made of recycled material tend to come from industrial recycling that won’t have been contaminated. Cheery article from the guardian convinced me that’s probably a good thing.

https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/27/recycled-reused-food-plastic-toxins-study

The jumper looks nice but I'd leave it. A small amount of nylon might be ok.

I've always used a manual de-bobbler comb on all my (wool,) knitwear. No worrying about batteries.
I don't mind a blend for Merino base layers, otherwise always look for pure wool.

I'm with you, and I'm always completely baffled about why shoppers aren't complaining about the way the quality of clothes has been downgraded. I really struggle now to find jumpers and coats that aren't synthetic. Boden used to be good for fabric quality but is now crap. The other day I tried on a nice wool coat in h and m, £80, checked the label and it was polyester.

Thanks for those links! @SoIRejoined I think people are objecting. It's in the M & S reviews for one, and I'm certainly not buying this stuff, and being much more careful to buy only good stuff, which for me means only one jumper bought over this winter, instead of a few more, and some charity/vinted/ebay stuff going forward. Eventually you would think this would feed back when they analyse what's selling and what isn't. Granted, the jumper industry won't rise or fall on the habits of a not very fashionable middle-aged northern bird, but still

I have been looking for a new jumper and I am sick of having to search so hard for natural fibres, even if you search for wool or cotton often that's only 30% of the composition.

Wool is sustainable and at this point pretty much a waste product so why the heck aren't we seeing more wool garments?

I don't mind paying decent money for wool but I am seeing horrible plasticky acrylic and polyester for the same prices. Social media is full of people pissed off because their acrylic or polyester jumper is pilled after one wash.

even if you search for wool or cotton often that's only 30% of the composition. Yes, this is the frustrating thing. If I search for cotton, I want cotton, not 'cotton rich'. It's cotton poor! You've taken the cotton away! It's clearly possible to code it in this way, but it's deliberately not split off.

What I also notice is that in equivalent stores - say looking through M&S, although the last thing I bought in M&S was 2017 - the fabrics are worse in women's wear than in mens' wear. The synthetics have started coming in to the men's, but not as large a share of the market. I get most clothes from the men's section for various reasons, but it's not available to all and it's not available for all types of items.

Same as others I want 100% natural fibres. So frustrating to spend hours clicking through to see the composition of different jumpers only to find polyester 😡

recycling plastics might have its place but not in my clothes and contaminating the water with microplastics thank you v much

I get my wool jumpers from here. Choice of merino, Shetland and lambs wool. Not fashionable, admittedly, but a nice range of colours; they wear well and the Shetland, especially, are very warm.
https://www.countrycollection.co.uk/products/509/lambswool-sweater-ladies

Celtic and Co are woollen knitwear, I sometimes buy their clothes from John Lewis

Seasalt keep their knitwear under £100 which is probably why it's mixed fibres, you would generally expect to pay a bit more than that for a decent jumper.

what is the story with Reiss charging huge prices even in their sale for blouses made of polyester or viscose...they look nice but at that price it should be silk. Is there different grades of polyester. What makes Reiss polyester so much more expensive than H&M polyester.