Sustainable Yoga Pants: Your Next Pair May Be Made From Corn

Did you know that yoga pants are made from petroleum-derived petrochemical products? The cotton and synthetic fabrics used to create these athletic pants are derived from oil-based products, and this article explores the ethical and environmental impacts of these products. Some companies have switched to eco-friendly fabrics, but the total amount of energy used to make yoga pants cannot be replaced with eco-friendly fabrics alone.

If you’re a yogi, chances are you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to be environmentally friendly—and for some of us, sustainability is part of the reason we do yoga at all.

Yoga Pants, anyone? It’s one of those trends that seems to be everywhere, but a recent controversy that erupted in India after a local news channel caught a yoga teacher in Pune burning her pants while teaching, has caused some yoga bloggers to address this trend. The question is, do these yoga pants really help you practice your yoga?. Read more about what are leggings made of and let us know what you think.

Spandex is wonderful for showing off your yoga-sculpted glutes, but have you ever wondered where it comes from and what happens to it after your favorite pair of yoga pants becomes too old to wear?

Most yoga pants are constructed from a combination of materials that include cotton, polyester, and Spandex, resulting in a lightweight, durable fabric that stretches well with your motions. Spandex and polyester, on the other hand, originate from non-eco-friendly sources.

What Ingredients Are in Your Yoga Pants?

Spandex is a man-made fiber-forming material produced from a component known as long-chain synthetic polymer. Plastics in stretchable synthetic fabric, like gasoline, start off as a fossil fuel. Plastics are byproducts of petroleum refining, and they’re found in a lot of things in our contemporary world, including your typical yoga pants.

Fossil fuels, as you surely know, are a limited resource that will ultimately run out. The extraction and refining of petroleum, which is required for plastic, consumes a lot of energy and water, and has a lot of environmental consequences.

Plus, since plastics never fully biodegrade, the plastic fibers in your yoga pants will linger on in the soil and water as small plastic molecules for the rest of your life.

Yoga Pants Made of…Corn?

As a result, producers are developing a new, more sustainable material: maize. Dextrose from maize may be used to replace oil-based polymers, such as the ones that give yoga trousers their flexibility.

The new corn-based fabric is claimed to be just as pleasant as the previous fabrics, and it may even keep you dry better than today’s quick-dry sportswear. Additionally, unlike the polymers in Spandex, dextrose fabric will not remain in the trash indefinitely.

Corn isn’t the only environmentally friendly textile material on the horizon. Bamboo yoga pants are becoming more popular throughout the globe.

You can also purchase yoga pants made from 100% recycled plastic water bottle fabric that is sourced and manufactured completely in Los Angeles, reducing the carbon impact of transporting materials across the globe.

Both bamboo and water-bottle yoga trousers have devotees who claim they’re just as comfy as synthetic fabrics.

Have you tried yoga pants produced from alternative fabrics that are environmentally friendly? If so, what were your thoughts? Which kind of sustainable cloth would you want to experiment with the most?

There are a lot of fun and funky things we can do with yoga pants, from wearing them to the beach, to wearing them as pyjamas. But did you know that yoga pants can be made from corn? Yep, it turns out that in fact, many yoga pants are made from corn based materials. As it turns out, the most popular fashion design for yoga pants is made from imported cotton, which is shipped from India to China where it is made into yoga pants. Then, the yoga pants are shipped back to India where they are shipped to the US where they are sold. This affects our earths natural resources, as well as our future generations. So if you are interested in sustainable yoga wear, you may want to consider. Read more about lycra and let us know what you think.

Related Tags

This article broadly covered the following related topics:

  • spandex
  • polyester
  • lycra
  • nylon
  • lycra spandex