The eco guide to outdoor wear | Lucy Siegle

High-performance clothes are great for keeping you warm and dry, but can contain high levels of polluting toxins

The wilderness nuts of old headed off on Nordic skis in sagging woollen leggings and handknitted sweaters. Modern wilderness wear is different. It's high performance, engineered to aid air flow around the body.

Some of this is clever design, but a lot is down to PFCs - perfluorinated chemicals. They repel grease and, crucially, water. It was a downer when we found out last year that fragments of plastic polymers from our clothes, especially active wear, end up as microplastic pollution in rivers and oceans.