Only three days ago, I linked to an article from Mark Dent, which puts our shortening toilet paper conspiracy theories to rest (spoiler: it’s not a conspiracy, and you’re not crazy, it’s for real).

I contacted Dent with another conspiracy of my own about t-shirts: the t-shirts I bought over the last couple of years seem to almost melt away in the laundry. I tried different brands, and most returned from the laundry with tiny holes, as if I washed them in acid.

Dent did not investigate t-shirts or clothing directly, but he did point me in the direction of another interesting article looking into the alarmingly decreased quality of sweaters.

As it turns out:

Knits used to be made entirely from natural fibers. These fibers usually came from shearing sheep, goats, alpacas, and other animals. Sometimes, plant-derived fibers such as cotton or linen were blended in. Now, according to Imran Islam, a textile-science professor and knit expert at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, the overwhelming majority of yarn used in mass-market knitwear is blended with some type of plastic.

It’s not just plastic and your usual capitalistic poison, which is a big part of this problem, but also:

This race to the bottom had been going on for years, but it accelerated considerably in 2005, Sofi Thanhauser, the author of Worn: A People’s History of Clothing, told me. That year was the end of the Multifiber Arrangement, a trade agreement that had for three decades capped imports of textile products and yarn into the United States, Canada, and the European Union from developing countries.

I don’t know about you, but I find these things fascinating. Turns out that you can say, “they don’t make them like they used to,” and you be right, supported by evidence.