Bethany Waite offers crochet, a seemingly peaceful crafting hobby whose materials and their labour and cultural meanings reveal creativity’s environmental connections. Crochet also offers Anthropocene opportunities for creative interventions that echo earlier forms of resistance, such as the Luddite movement, that challenged the social and ecological costs of industrial acceleration.
Museum of the Anthropocene: Crochet
Crocheting with yarn might seem like a peaceful crafting hobby, but both the material and the hobby itself are part of stories of environmental change, industry, and empire. This practice reveals global histories of exploitation and extraction, exposing the true impact of the Anthropocene. The materials used, the labour behind them, and the cultural meanings they carry each tell a part of the larger story of how creativity has shaped and been shaped by the environment.
There are two main types of yarn commonly used in crochet, each representing a different stage of human influence. Cotton yarn reflects the environmental and social costs of the colonial expansion. Empires such as Britain’s began to exploit land and labour across the globe to meet the growing demand for cotton. Monoculture plantations stripped the soil of nutrients, drained water systems, and drove deforestation and biodiversity loss. Its cultivation relied on enslaved and exploited workers, linking this natural fibre to centuries of violence and environmental harm. Cotton became a symbol of how empire and extraction reshaped both land and lives, leaving environmental damage that still echoes through economies today.
Acrylic yarn represents a much later stage in the Anthropocene. Created from fossil fuels in the 20th century, it symbolises industrialisation and the modern demand for speed, convenience, and low cost. Made from plastic, it sheds microfibres that enter rivers, oceans, and even human bodies. The production of acrylic fibres contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, plastic pollution, and dependence on oil. This material reflects humanity’s growing separation from the natural world, as even creative expression has become reliant on synthetic materials that pollute the natural environment.
Both materials expose the inequalities that sustain global production. Cotton remains tied to exploitative labour practices and water-intensive agriculture, while acrylic depends on oil extraction and chemical industries that damage the environment. The shift from natural to synthetic fibres reflects a broader change in consumer culture that prioritises convenience and cost over sustainability and care of the planet. The crochet materials that once connected people to land and skill now often represent distance, exploitation, and waste.
Alongside this, crochet reflects the move from slow, handmade production to the rapid turnover of fast fashion. In the past, this craft was done out of necessity for warmth and durability; however, crochet now stands in contrast to clothing made for speed and profit.
Although true crochet cannot be made by machine, crochet-style fashion has been mass-produced through poor manufacturing and exploitative labour practices. This industrial imitation removes the patience and care once vital to the craft, transforming a symbol of skill into one of overconsumption and disposability.
Crochet reveals how creativity and care are bound to environmental cost. The materials that form something beautiful are also the products of extraction, pollution, and inequality. What appears simple and harmless carries the weight of global systems that connect comfort to exploitation.
Yet crochet also offers possibilities for repair and resistance within the Anthropocene. Movements such as craftivism use handmade textiles to spark conversations about environmental care, labour rights, and community resilience. Practices such as yarn‑bombing introduce slow, handmade work into fast, industrialised spaces, disrupting the speed and disposability that define modern fashion systems. These creative interventions echo earlier forms of resistance, such as the Luddite movement, which challenged the social and ecological costs of industrial acceleration.
Today, the revival of slow craft practices, repair cultures, and community‑based making indicates a growing desire to reconnect creativity with sustainability. Crochet becomes more than a reminder of extraction and inequality. It becomes a way to imagine alternative futures supported by care, skill, and more sustainable relationships with materials. In this sense, crochet reveals not only how human impact is embedded in everyday objects, but also how creative, community‑centred practices can help shape more hopeful and environmentally conscious futures in the Anthropocene.
Notes
Crochet was contributed by Bethany Waite.
Bethany says: “Exploring crochet within the Anthropocene helped me see how handmade practices can expose the environmental and social systems behind the materials we use. Studying the craft’s connections to extraction, labour, and care allowed me to bring together my creative interests with my academic focus on environmental change. The module has shaped how I approach research and making, encouraging me to think critically about the stories embedded in everyday objects. It’s a perspective I’ll continue developing as I move into the next stage of my work after my degree.”