The surprising potential health risks of yarn

Here's something that may convince more people to start spinning their own yarn from scratch: there are a surprising number of ways in which yarn can pose health hazards, both to you personally and to the environment at large. A Ravelry thread brought up this blog post as an example of the various potential hazards posed by different types of yarn.

It looks scary on the face of it. But first, you have to separate the personal threats from the environmental threats.

Everything we own, everything we buy, everything we use was manufactured with a staggering amount of chemicals, waste, and environmental toxins as a byproduct. It's just a fact of life in the 21st century. I'm not defending it, I'm just saying, don't blame yarns for being made in a process that results in toxic chemicals as a byproduct.

This is an excellent argument for using repurposed yarn whenever you can. Here's an article on how to identify thrift store sweaters that you can unravel and reclaim for your own use. It's also an excellent argument for using wool over acrylic, since wool has less of an environmental impact than the petroleum industry.

As for the issue of synthetic yarns off-gassing potentially harmful vapors and chemicals, this threat is very real, but also very small. Compared to all the sources of harmful chemicals in our lives, yarn is pretty minor. But if you're worried about it, I definitely recommend switching to natural fibers.

There are a lot of great organic options for wool and cotton yarn, including offerings from Blue Sky, Green Mountain Spinnery, Beaverslide Dry Goods, and other small operations. As a bonus, your purchases help support these small businesses in an increasingly difficult economy.

And finally, you can always learn to spin your own. It's not that hard, and it gives you complete control over the entire process, from raw fleece to finished yarn. I highly recommend it, for a lot of reasons.

Image courtesy Flickr/Jenniune Captures