I have a variety of ropes that I re-use for tomato support, and over time I found that the bleach does rot them after several years. Nothing synthetic is really happy being bleached. It seems fine one day and the next it's shedding fibers like crazy. This year I washed the ropes with oxyclean in the washing machine instead of a bleach soak and rinse by hand. There was no disease issue with stems using these ropes, so any spores or disease on the rope must have been well taken care of.
It is a hassle to reuse this stuff but even sadder if you find it soon has to be replaced anyway...
At my friend's farm they use a very coarse sisal twine and the tomatoes are okay with it. End of season it gets tossed with the plants into the compost. I think I might do the same in future, instead of the reusable rope chores.
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