Editorial standards

Every page starts with the answer. If you read only the first paragraph, you should leave knowing what you came to find out, whether that’s what viscose is made from or whether nylon counts as plastic. The evidence comes after it.

We go to the original source for every fact: the study itself, the regulation, the standard, or the report from whoever collected the data. Blog posts and brand pages can point us in a direction, but we don’t cite them, partly because so many of them get the numbers wrong. Each page lists its sources at the bottom, and the source registry has all of them with a note on what each one supports.

When we quote a number, it’s the number the source reported. If a study counted 496,000 fibers from one wash, we write 496,000 and not “half a million”, and we say when and how it was measured if that changes what it means.

Every page shows the date it was last updated. When new research changes an answer, we change the page.

If you spot an error, email hello@polyesterproblem.org. We’ll fix it, and if the correction is significant we’ll note it on the page.