Gore-Tex is a highly versatile material that has garnered a lot of publicity in recent years.
It is a magical material in many respects. Water simply glides off it, leaving it bone dry. Being also very breathable and light, it is no surprise that it is the ideal material for water resistant clothing.
First invented in 1968 by Wilbert and Robert Gore, it is made of polytetrafluoroethylene, more commonly known as Teflon. Not the hard stuff though. It’s basically Teflon that has been stretched… a lot.
With the likes of Adidas and Nike incorporating it into their outdoor wear products, its worldwide use and popularity has called into question the manufacturing process and its environmental impacts.
Teflon is a very durable material that does not degrade easy and lasts for a long, long time. This is a good thing right? Well, yes… But what happens when that fifteen year old jacket you own is discarded or lost, and finds itself buried in the dirt outside an abandoned parking lot?
It persists. And doesn’t degrade. For centuries.
PFC’s or perfluorinated compounds are those that contain only carbon and fluorine atoms. Teflon is made from these compounds.
Chemical structure of Teflon: repeating units of carbon and fluorine atoms
The problem with PFC’s is that they tend to accumulate within our bodies and the environment. They are difficult to break down as they are quite unreactive.
A class action lawsuit at a DuPont Teflon plant found a very strong association between working with PFC’s and two types of cancer. Since then, many other studies have found a correlation between exposure to certain PFC’s and negative health outcomes.
To be clear, it isn’t the wearing of Gore-Tex products that is concerning. Also, not all PFC’s are harmful. However, the manufacturing process dispels many harmful PFC’s into the environment.
Gore-Tex jackets are also near impossible to recycle. They are made in complex ways, and the design process involves multiple layers, glues, and components.
Gore-Tex must not be completely written off though. Gore and company have assured investors and the public that they are stopping the use of many harmful PFC’s in their manufacturing process. However, the effects of this are yet to be seen.
There are also other, more intriguing applications of this remarkable material.
What is not talked about nearly enough is the role of Gore-Tex in medicine. It has shown to be ideal for use inside our bodies.
Being so unreactive, it allows the body’s cells and tissues to grow through it without any side effects. This makes it a viable material for many medical applications.
Like most technologies, Gore-Tex is complicated in many ways. Its strengths in one regard prove to be its downfall in another. It seems the jury is still out on this one
– Salik Rushdy
I really enjoyed this blog, I was familiar with the structure of Gore-Tex but unaware of the controversy in pollution. This is especially interesting as this material is used by many outdoors brands which generally market to the eco-conscious crowd. I was also unaware of it’s possible applications in the medical field. The addition of this as another Gore-Tex fact was effective at the end of this blog. So effective that it has left me wanting more. I think it would have been interesting to expand on that idea. Just one more sentence saying what specifically this material could be used for could be a nice addition. Overall this was an interesting read, nice job!
This was really interesting to read! Like Bridget, I was not aware of the controversy surrounding the environmental impact of Gore-tex. I believe this post is written with a general audience in mind due it’s minimal use of jargon (when jargon is used, it is adequately explained). This post would be especially relevant to people who enjoy the outdoors and are the main consumers of Gore-tex clothing. I believe a journalistic style was used due to the inverted pyramid structure and short paragraphs.