Why wear stockings? (0 Comments)
I was surfing the net this morning, and I found this interesting theori:
“Wearing pantyhose consumes five times more nylon, and produces five times more garbage (by weight) than wearing thigh-highs or regular stockings. Here’s how the numbers work out. A pair of stockings weighs .3 ounce; an average pair of pantyhose weighs four times as much, or 1.2 oz. (This is because the torso portion of pantyhose is double-thickness, and because half (?) the pantyhose sold are control-top types that are even thicker.) Also, a pair of pantyhose is discarded, on average, 25% sooner than a pair of stockings, because it is “done for” when the first leg gets a run. (I.e., with stockings the wearer just replaces the bad leg and goes on wearing the good one.) So a woman who wears a dozen pairs of pantyhose per year would need only 9 pairs of stockings to replace them. Putting this factor together with the greater weight of pantyhose, the bottom line is that a pantyhose-wearer consumes five times more nylon per year.
How much is that in terms of ounces? According to the book “The Average American”, the average career woman buys 22 pairs of pantyhose per year; the average college woman buys 9. Let’s assume the average housewife also buys 9, and thus that the average woman (including all three categories) buys 15 pairs. 15 pairs of pantyhose weigh 18 ounces; their replacement, 11.25 pairs of stockings, weigh 3.375 oz.; the difference is 14.625 ounces per year. (The high-consumption career woman uses roughly 1.5 pounds more per year.) Over the course of a 60-year hose-wearing lifetime (from ages 18 to 78), the difference is thus 877.5 ozs., or roughly 55 pounds. That’s non-biodegradable, non-recyclable waste—and it’s totally unnecessary waste.
The above is slightly offset by the stocking-wearer’s need to consume a garter belt; but that weighs only two oz. and lasts about two or three (?) years, so it creates little waste. (And a new-design garter belt with a replaceable elastic back strap could be made that would last two or three times longer.)
Now let’s scale the figures up to the national level. According to the Hosiery Assn., roughly 340 million pairs of pantyhose were sold in the U.S. in 2001. Assuming about 3/4 of their weight would be saved (after deducting for extra undies) if stockings were worn instead, about 15 million pounds of nylon is wasted thereby. If we were in WW2, the government would prohibit pantyhose for this staggering wastefulness. Well, in a way were are in a struggle—an ecological struggle. We want to reduce needless consumption and garbage production. Pantyhose are a “modern convenience” that costs more than they’re worth.
Incidentally, about 52 million pairs of stockings were sold, about 90% (I’d guess) of them “thigh-highs”—or “holds-ups” as they’re called in the UK. Also, about 193 million pairs of “knee-highs” (“pop-socks” in the UK) were sold.)”
Here’s Kryztal Red In dark tan nylon stockings.
Luke
nylonsblog.com














