Jonathan Webb

There's a lot of research going on here at the moment.

This is something that the US researchers are really interested in looking at.

But it's not necessarily going to be a completely safe guarantee to wash it.

It could just be spreading the contamination out a bit.

Yeah, yeah.

You could definitely still wash textiles when they're in your house.

That's definitely a smart idea, but it's not necessarily going to be 100% protective, unfortunately.

So particularly bamboo fabrics or any kind of rayon or viscose that markets itself as cellulose-derived and really sort of environmental and coming from trees, that can be made in a really safe, responsible way, but it can also be made with a substance called carbon disulfide.

There are some voluntary standards that brands use, which can give you a little bit more confidence that it's been made responsibly.

I spoke to Rebecca Van Amber, RMIT University, and she had a few different suggestions for things that can be a good indication that the clothing's a little bit safer.

So things like the Ecotext standard, the GOTS, organic cotton standard.

But it is tricky.

There's a lot of greenwashing in the sector.

There's a lot of it's, you know, you have to often do a little bit of digging to figure out if like an individual brand has actually made stuff responsibly or if they're just kind of saying they've done it on their website.

And one of the things Rebecca said to me was that it really shouldn't be on the consumer to have to do all of this research.

Like, you know, you need to wear clothes.

You shouldn't have to do half an hour of looking things up just to check that it's going to be safe to wear when you, you know, you need a shirt to wear or your kids need shirts to wear to school, that sort of thing.

So yes, there are things you can do.

You can check for these voluntary standards.

But ultimately, it would be a lot easier and better for everyone if there were sort of mandatory rules on testing for these things and labeling where they've come from and what they're made of.