GEAR FOCUS

TAKING THE OIL OUT OF OILIES: SAM FORTESCUE ON ECO FOULIES

A GREENER FUTURE FOR... WET WEATHER GEAR

Back in the days when togging up for a sail meant donning a stout Guernsey and some tightly woven gaberdines, sustainability was barely on the agenda. Wool and cotton were the main fabrics of choice, with perhaps a latex or wax coating to offer a modicum of waterproofing.

Today there is an astonishing array of technical fabrics and clothing to keep us dry inside and out without cramping our range of movement. Garments keep working in the Southern Ocean, in the Arctic Circle and under intense activity. But alas, there is a cost to progress, because we rely almost exclusively on man-made synthetic fibres and coatings whose chief precursor is crude oil.

The problem with wet weather gear is in fact several fold, because these are composite garments built in several layers.

The outer layer of fabric will typically be polyester or nylon, and it is treated with something called a Durable Water Repellent (DWR) coating – a chemical which makes water bead off.

Then there is a vanishingly thin synthetic membrane sandwiched between the inner and outer layers of the garment, made of a polymer.

TOXIC COMPOUNDS 

Until recently, DWR has been manufactured from a chemical family known as perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs. These are related to Teflon and are described as ‘forever chemicals’ because their key characteristic is not to break down in nature (they wouldn’t work very well if they did). They’re toxic substances, and research suggests that they are carcinogenic and interrupt the reproductive cycle. Many waterproof membranes, including Gore-Tex, are made from sheets of extended PTFE (aka Teflon), which belongs to the same family of chemicals.