If you want to knit with an eye toward less environmental impact, there's a wide world of eco-friendly yarns out there for you to choose from. All the different choices -- from those made with organic or recycled content to those use alternative components like milk and soy -- have different characteristics, pros and cons depending on what your goals are as a crafter.
No one can make the decision for you as to whether or which yarns are the ones you want to use, but this overview of the basic categories should start you thinking about how to make greener knitting choices should you want to.
Organic Yarns
Yarn, like food, is considered organic when the fiber is produced without the use of manmade chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides. If animal fiber is involved, the animals have to have been raised to organic specifications.
Choosing organic is especially important when it comes to cotton yarn, since cotton is one of the biggest contributors to pesticide use out there.
Organic Yarn Reviews- Hand Jive Nature's Palette Green Sheep
- Hand Jive Nature's Palette
- Kollage Hope
- Lion Brand LB Collection Organic Wool
- O-Wool Balance
- O-Wool Classic 2-Ply
- O-Wool Classic
Natural Dyes
One thing you'll want to consider when looking at organic and eco-friendlier yarns is if and how the yarn was dyed. Many greener yarn manufacturers (organic or not) offer natural colored yarns, while others use traditional dyestuffs and less toxic methods to make a yarn with less impact.
Natural/Undyed Yarn Reviews- Cascade Ecological Wool
- Farm Yarn Natural White Alpaca
- Midnightsky Fibers Rockfish
- Midnightsky Fibers Roo Rio
Yarns Made with Recycled Material
A new emerging player on the eco-friendly yarn field is yarns with recycled materials. These yarns divert trash from the waste stream -- often plastic bottles or cotton from T-shirt manufacturing -- and combine them with other fibers to make a yarn.
One potential concern with these sorts of yarns is where the other fibers came from; synthetic yarns with recycled material in them still aren't incredibly green.
Recycled Material Yarn ReviewsAlternative Fiber Yarns
The final category of eco-friendlier yarns includes those made with non-traditional materials, ranging from milk and soy protein to banana leaves and more. These are often considered an eco choice because they sometimes use byproducts or waste products of other production processes, and they are considered more sustainable than yarns made with petroleum products.
But the manufacturing processes to turn, say, milk to fiber can be quite intensive, meaning big energy and water outputs. And bamboo, which is often considered a greener choice because it is so quick growing, is not always grown in an eco-friendly way, and again yarn production is a lengthy, resource-intensive process.
Alternative Fiber Yarn Reviews