Teams in the market for custom shirts have to choose factors that barely registered on anyone's radar a few decades back. Sustainability is a big deal now (to team members and to the sponsors who support them), and it makes sense to care about the environmental effects of it. The challenge is that "eco-friendly" doesn't mean the same to everyone. Different manufacturers measure sustainability in their own way, and each one tends to look at different areas. Water usage is one example of this.
One type of fabric might use way less water during the manufacturing process. That same fabric releases microplastics every time it goes through your washing machine. Another material could be biodegradable and break down after you're done with it. The process of actually creating that fabric can need substantially more energy and raw materials from the start.
Team shirts have to last through multiple washing cycles, and they also need to keep everyone comfortable during whatever activities your group participates in. Most organizations are working within a budget (and it's usually a tight one), and nobody wants to spend money on a bulk order only to watch those shirts fall apart after a month of normal use. Even worse is when they get stuffed in the back of everyone's drawers because they're just too uncomfortable to actually wear.
Recycled polyester and organic cotton are popular options for athletic teams, corporate groups and volunteer organizations. These materials have their upsides. The key consideration is to match up what each one does well with what your entire team actually needs to wear and use every day. Don't pick whichever one sounds the best when you're reading about sustainability online or flipping through marketing brochures.
Let's compare these two sustainable fabrics to find the perfect fit for your entire team!
How Different Fabrics Handle Your Sweat
Recycled polyester and organic cotton handle sweat differently, and it matters when you're wearing them. Polyester fibers pull moisture away from your skin and spread it out across the surface of the fabric. Once it gets there, the sweat evaporates pretty fast - in about 30 minutes or less in most cases. Cotton works the opposite way because it absorbs all that moisture and holds it deep inside the fibers.
Cotton's high absorption rates suit certain products. Active wear needs the opposite - cotton traps moisture for hours and doesn't dry out as fast as synthetic fabrics. When anyone on the team works up a sweat during an activity and then has to stand around in the cold or wind afterward, they're going to stay damp and uncomfortable for way too long. Marathon runners usually go with synthetic fabrics on race day, and there's a real reason for that - staying dry matters when you're out there for hours. The same idea applies to your softball team or soccer league. Nobody wants to spend an entire game or a practice in a damp, clingy shirt.
Polyester does a great job at keeping everyone more comfortable when it's hot out or when everyone's working hard on the field. Of course, not every team needs that level of performance. A chess club or a book club won't work up much sweat during their weekly meetings. And a casual office team that just wants some matching shirts for the company photo probably won't care much about how fast the fabric dries.
What your group actually does during meetups should guide this choice. Think about whether you're outside in the summer heat for sports and physical activities, whether it's the type of activity where everyone's heart rate goes up and they're sweating or whether most of your meetups are indoors where the AC keeps everyone comfortable. How you'll actually use them is what should tell you which one to go with.
The Environmental Cost of Each Fabric
Recycled polyester and organic cotton each have environmental tradeoffs. Recycled polyester starts with old plastic bottles that manufacturers process and turn into wearable fabric. A typical t-shirt contains somewhere around 22 of these recycled bottles - those same bottles that would otherwise sit in a landfill or float in the ocean.
Polyester has a hidden environmental issue that most teams miss until well after they've placed their order and their uniforms start to get washed. Each time polyester garments go through the wash, thousands of small plastic fibers break loose and get sent right into the water system. A single load of laundry releases up to 700,000 microscopic fibers straight down the drain. These microplastics eventually make their way into rivers and oceans, where they stay for decades.
Organic cotton has a very different environmental footprint, and one of the biggest benefits is all about the water usage. Organic farming methods use around 91% less water compared to what conventional cotton production needs - and that's quite a difference. Drought and water scarcity are big problems in lots of regions right now, and this 91% reduction in water consumption makes a genuine difference for those areas.
Cotton is always going to need water to grow, no matter how you farm it. Some techniques can cut down the amount by quite a bit. But the total water needed is still quite high if you stack it up against synthetic fabrics. Cotton does have one big advantage, though - it's biodegradable. An old cotton shirt will eventually break down on its own instead of taking up space in a landfill for the next hundred years like synthetics do.
These fabrics are meant to be better for the environment. But they each take a different strategy. Recycled polyester takes plastic waste and turns it into a wearable material for a second life. Organic cotton focuses more on what goes on at the farm level and drastically cuts down on the chemicals that are needed to grow the plants. Neither option is going to be perfect, and one fabric choice alone won't solve all of the environmental problems we have.
Your entire team is going to need to sit down together and figure out which environmental priority actually matters most to your company. Maybe you want to keep plastic out of landfills as the top priority. Or maybe water conservation and natural materials rank higher on your list. The tradeoffs are going to look different for every organization - and they'll depend on what your company values most and what you're actually trying to accomplish with your sustainability work.
Cost and How Long Your Shirts Last
Recycled polyester shirts usually cost about 15 to 25% less than organic cotton does right from the start. The difference stays small when buying just one shirt. When you have to outfit an entire team, though, the savings pile up fast.
Polyester holds up well in the wash, and longevity is one of its biggest selling points. A polyester shirt can go through 100 washes (maybe more!) and still look just as nice as it did on day one. The fibers are designed to spring back to their original form every time and not to stretch and warp the way other materials do after repeated washing. For teams that need to look sharp and uniform week after week, this durability pays off.
Polyester also does a great job at keeping printed designs sharp and bright. Team logos, names and custom graphics stay crisp even after months of games and repeated wash cycles. Nobody wants to see team names that slowly fade into an unreadable blur halfway through the season.
The fabric gets softer and softer with each wash, and this is one of the best benefits. Teams love this because the shirts just get more comfortable the longer you wear them. That broken-in feeling is nice to have, especially when you have to wear your shirts all day long.
Cotton is also simple to repair. A rip or tear in a cotton shirt just needs a needle and some thread to fix it right up. Basic sewing skills can keep a cotton shirt going way longer. For teams that are hard on their gear and want to get as much use as possible out of each shirt before it's time to buy new ones, the fact that cotton is simple to repair can save some money over time.
What Your Team Needs for Comfort
Comfort matters quite a bit as well - specifically how the fabric feels against your skin when everyone on your entire team has these shirts on all day long. Organic cotton is breathable, and air can move through the fabric pretty freely. On a warm day, this airflow matters in how comfortable you feel. Cotton also resists odors much better than synthetic fabrics. After a long day at work or an intense workout, your cotton shirt is going to smell considerably fresher than something made from polyester.
Polyester can irritate the skin of some wearers, and it's usually worse when the temperature climbs. Sweat gets trapped right against those synthetic fibers, and since the material doesn't breathe all that well, all that moisture just sits there on your skin. You might end up with pretty uncomfortable reactions - like redness, itchy skin and general irritation. If a shirt bothers you every time you put it on, you're probably not going to reach for it again. It'll most likely just get pushed to the back of the drawer and stay there.
The fabric tends to absorb sweat and moisture pretty fast, and it can make your shirt feel heavy and damp after you wear it for a while. Jobs with a lot of physical activity can make this uncomfortable fast. Cotton also has a tendency to shrink between 3% and 5% after you wash it for the first time. Polyester keeps its original size and fit much better even after you've washed it dozens of times.
Those who'll wear these shirts matter just as much as the shirts themselves. If they work outside all day during the summer, breathable fabric needs to be near the top of the list. If anyone on the team has sensitive skin that doesn't do well with synthetic materials, you'll need to find something that works for everyone. A shirt can look perfect in a catalog or on a spec sheet. But it won't help if nobody on your entire team actually wants to wear it.
Blends Give Teams the Perfect Balance
A blend of recycled polyester and organic cotton is usually the favorite for most teams, and it makes plenty of sense if you look at what you're actually working with. Combining these two materials has the best features from each of them. Most blends use a 50/50 ratio, and this gives you polyester's moisture-wicking properties along with the natural softness and comfort that cotton gives you. Shirts made from this blend breathe much better than the pure cotton options, and they dry a whole lot faster, too.
Big sports brands have been going with it for years, with university teams and corporate groups. They take care of the uniforms, and those shirts need to work well in all kinds of scenarios. Blended fabrics fit the bill just right. Athletes can wear them during training sessions and then leave them on afterward because they still look nice enough for casual wear.
Blended shirts also release about 40% less microplastics in the wash compared to if you went with the pure polyester. Microplastic pollution happens to be one of the bigger environmental problems with synthetic fabrics, so a 40% reduction might not sound that massive on paper. But it does add up over time, given how frequently you'll wash these items.
The dry time falls right in the middle between the two extremes. Your entire team won't have to wait around nearly as long as they would with 100% cotton shirts. At the same time, you still get that soft, comfortable texture that makes the natural fibers so nice. Blends work best when teams need shirts for all kinds of situations. Full performance is still there, and the comfort levels stay high, and that's the combination most groups are after anyway. Your entire team is going to use these shirts in all sorts of ways, so you should map that out ahead of time before you decide. They might wear them at the gym and then also throw them on for errands or casual wear throughout the week. A blended fabric option is usually going to suit everyone better in that scenario, instead of if you commit to just cotton or just polyester.
Make the Best Choice for Your Team
No single fabric choice works just right for every team, and a lot of it depends on what matters most to the group you're working with. Teams that are going to be active and sweaty during high-energy activities will probably want to look at recycled polyester since it wicks away moisture and dries fast. But if breathability and natural comfort matter more to your group (this tends to be the case when teams want to get away from synthetic materials altogether), then organic cotton is going to be the better option in situations like that. Blended fabrics can offer you a solid compromise when the choice feels tough, and they pull in some of the benefits from each material without sacrificing too much of what makes each one work well.
When you're ready to make a final choice on which fabric to go with, it's worth taking a step back to think about what your entire team actually deals with day-to-day. You'll want to think about the weather in the areas where these shirts will get worn, how hard your activities are going to be, pushing everyone and what you can afford to spend now and how much flexibility you have later. Different teams have different needs too - maybe performance is the biggest priority for you, or maybe environmental responsibility matters more than anything else, or maybe you need something that gives you a bit of each. All this will help you narrow down which fabric is going to work best for what you need.
You should order a few samples first before you order shirts for the whole group. When you feel the fabric and wear it for a bit, you'll have a much better sense of what your final choice is. Product descriptions can sound great on paper. But they don't always match up with what you'll actually experience. There's no substitute for that bit of physical time with the product.
At Ethix Merch, we don't think you should have to sacrifice your principles just to get quality team gear. We help teams discover products that actually line up with what matters most to you - no compromises needed. Go ahead and browse through all that we carry, and you'll find gear that matches your values. Check back with us from time to time, too, because we share helpful information about making better, more deliberate decisions about the products your entire team uses.
Daniel Cardozo, CEO of Ethix Merch, is a passionate advocate for ethical promotional products. With a mission to transform global supply chains, he serves on the Labor 411 Foundation and Advertising Specialty Institute's Promo for the Planet Advisory Board. Daniel is dedicated to empowering socially and environmentally-conscious consumers.
