High-quality garments can be made from second-hand clothes and even recycled plastic bottles. With the eco-fashion industry still in its infancy, the main responsibility at the moment lies with clothes manufacturers and fashion designers, who need to start using sustainable materials and processes.
Fabrics There are a variety of materials considered "environmentally-friendly" for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, the re-new ability of the product. Renewable resources are items that can be replenished in a relatively short amount of time as opposed to millennia.
The second factor is the ecological footprint of the resource - how much land usually measured in acres it takes to bring one of the individuals plants or animals to full growth and support it. Fabrics considered in this list include organic cotton, Organic silk, Organic wool, soy silk, Milk-silk, Pine apple fabrics, Hemp, Peat, Fortrel eco-spun tm, Ingeo tm corn fibre, bamboo, Recycled fabrics from recycled fibre. Fabrics not currently in this list include: linen, silk, kenaf, and switchgrass, but they are forthcoming.
Definitions Organics Produced with the use of feed or fertilizer of plant or animal origin without employment of chemically formulated fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides.
Recycled Textiles that have been discarded by consumers, retailers or charitable organizations, which have undergone a discriminating process of sorting, grading and separation into waste-free products suitable for reuse. Ecological Footprint The calculation of the amount of natural resources required by an individual or group of individuals plants, animals, nations to sustain itself.
More sustainable products: Organic cotton The Cotton Project supports small-scale farmers, especially in Africa, to change to new systems which are farmer-centred and in which pesticide use is reduced or eliminated.
All the cotton that Patagonia uses for their outdoor gear is organic as well. Organic cotton garments are often also free from chlorine bleaches and synthetic dyes.
Organic cotton is much more environmentally friendly than the traditional variety as it uses no pesticides, herbicides, or insecticides during the growing cycle. There are many growers of this crop, and the number is steadily increasing. Usually manufacturers using this plant to make textiles follow up the process by using natural dyes to further reduce the amount of chemicals dumped into our ecosystem.
Even more promising is new cotton that is grown in the tradition of the Aztecs - coloured cotton. Sally Fox, a biologist, spent ten years perfecting coloured cotton with long enough fibres to be spun into thread.
She managed to get it to grow naturally in shades of green and brown. It has the added benefit of not fading in colour and in fact, it gets more vibrant with the first few types of washing. Jute is per cent bio-degradable and thus, environment-friendly. It is used extensively in manufacturing different types of packaging material for agricultural and industrial products.
Ute is available in abundance in India, at competitive prices. Jute is now not just a major textile fiber, but also a raw material for non-textile products, which help to protect environment, which is an integral part of any development planning. Known for its coarse character due to its heavy texture, jute has come to acquire the center stage as an eco-friendly alternative. Jute, characterized by its silky texture, high tensile strength and resistance to heat and fire is considered fit for use in industries as varied as fashion, travel and luggage, furnishings, carpets and floor coverings, decoratives, textiles and made-ups.
Geo-jute-The Eco-friendly Fiber One of the oldest industries in India, Jute has traditionally been used for packaging. However, its versatility is only coming to light now as the world looks on for natural options to save the environment.
The time has come for this natural fiber to take over with the ideal solutions for the modern world. Tencel Tencel is a natural, man-made fiber. It has many of the qualities of synthetics, but is made of natural cellulose found in wood pulp making it fully biodegradable.
The process also uses no chlorine for bleaching, making the entire process relatively environmentally friendly. Products that can be made from this material include all forms of clothing such as shirts, pants, skirts, and suits, as well as sheets or any other cloth application where something other than cotton is desired.
Tencel can be blended with other materials to produce other effects, however depending on the materials it is blended with it may or may not affect the biodegradability of the product. This is an important product because traditionally synthetic clothing has been made from oil, which has many downsides. Cellulose is a renewable resource, whereas a lack of oil will result in a lack of synthetic clothing in addition to all of the fuel-related issues. Tencel could be an excellent replacement for synthetic materials such as Rayon.
The full product lifespan has been taken into consideration during design as well; when an article of clothing made of Tencel is at the end of it's useful life cycle, instead of being thrown away it can be composted safely.
Milk Yarn Cyarn milk protein fiber dewaters and skims milk, and manufactures the protein spinning fluid suitable for wet spinning process by means of new bio-engineering technique, and new high-grade textile fiber is made by combining them. In April , it passed Oeko-Tex Standard green certification for the international ecological textiles.
Cyarn milk protein fiber is healthy for skin, comfortable, with bright colors due to good dyeability, etc. The milk protein fiber can be spun purely or spun with cashmere, silk, spun silk, cotton, wool, ramie and other fibers to weave fabrics with the features of milk protein fiber.
It can also be used to create top-grade underwear, shirts, T shirts, loungewear, etc. The milk protein fiber is a fresh product as a superior green, healthy and comfortable fiber, milk protein fiber will certainly become popular goods in the market as new favorite of the Textile. Linen Linen is made from flax, another traditional fibre crop which needs few chemical fertilisers, and less pesticide than cotton. Hemp Hemp, The Natural Choice Good news for farmers: hemp is making a big comeback in the fashion world.
Indeed, hemp grows without fertilizer, requires minimum attention, doesn't deplete soil nutrients and is easy to harvest. As a result most hemp by-products are now certified organic. By far; the crop with the most potential for eco-friendly textile use is hemp. The ecological footprint of hemp is considerably smaller than that of most other plants considered for their fibres. Hemp plants grow very quickly and densely which makes it difficult for weeds to take hold, eliminating the need for herbicides and artificial fertilizers.
It requires no irrigation as it thrives on the amount of water in the average rainfall, and it is highly pest-resistant. Hemp has naturally long fibres which makes it suitable for spinning with a minimum of processing. Those fibres are also long-lasting, in fact, historically hemp has been used for making naval ropes that were used in and around water because they resist rot. If it held up to those conditions, imagine how well it will wear as a pair of jeans, or a shirt.
Hemp fabrics come in a variety of weights and textures. You can purchase fabric or clothing, woven or knit; buy yarn, rope, belts and a wide range of products made of this versatile plant.
Hemp is a thoroughly ecological crop: highly productive, easy to cultivate and pest tolerant, so needing few or no agrichemcials whilst at the same time binding and enriching the soil with its deep roots. It is a traditional fibre, that went out of favour in the s for political reasons , rather than practical ones.
It is now at long last undergoing something of a revival: Hemp clothing specialists include Hemp Union Ltd. Hemp yarn is available from the House of Hemp. Note: agricultural hemp, though versatile and productive as a fibre, oil and food plant, is useless as a narcotic! Wool Organic wool is increasingly becoming available: it is produced using sustainable farming practises and without toxic sheep dips. Wool produced by caring farmers can be a wonderful resource, with a few caveats. Sheep graze plants almost to the dirt, and there is the issue of the manure entering into the water supply.
Factory-farmed sheep as with any factory-farmed animals live miserable lives where the handlers are concerned with productivity and speed, including during the shearing process, where nicks are common even to the point of slicing the entire nose off the sheep. Then there is the matter of bleaching the wool to get it white, or dyeing it, but with a responsible eco-friendly manufacturer most of these issues can be overcome.
Soy silk Legend has it that Henry Ford wore a suit made of soy silk in the s, but the US Government of the day decided to go with rayon instead. Here in the 21st century, though, it's soy silk that has the greater potential. Soy silk is made from the by-products of the tofu-making process. The liquefied proteins are extruded into fibres which are then spun, and used like any other fibre woven, knitted, etc. You can purchase skeins of soy silk yarn and test it out for yourself.
The high protein content makes it receptive to natural dyes, so you can create your own colours. Ingoe Corn Fiber It is undoubtedly too early to believe that Dow Chemicals Cargill Dow has turned over a new leaf, but it seems that they are interested in reaching out to new markets through the development of Ingeo.
Ingo is created by extracting the starch and then sugars from corn, and processing them to make a fibre, which can be spun into a yarn or woven into fabric. Bamboo It's hard to see how this fabric qualifies as "environmentally-friendly" when the manufacturer's site contains the following sentence: "Firstly, bamboo pulp is refined from bamboo through a process of hydrolysis-alkalization and multi-phase bleaching.
It also has natural antibacterial properties and the fabric "breathes". The resultant cloth is biodegradable. Fortel EcoSpun Recycled polyester fleece jackets made from recycled drinks bottles.
Even some hi-tech waterproofs can potentially be recycled - if facilities exist. Avoid PVC, laminates and polyurethane. A polyester fibre made out of recycled plastic bottles which can be made into fleece.
Manufacturing this fibre is preferable to creating new petroleum-based fibres, and a plus given the sheer amount of plastic bottles in existence. The fleece that is created is prized by backpackers for its warmth and durability. Everybody wants to strike an impression with different and fashionable clothes. But the sad fact is that the human greed to look appealing and wear glamorous clothes has ended up causing harm to the environment.
The textile industry is one of the most pollutants releasing industries of the world. Surveys show that nearly five percent of all landfill space is consumed by textile waste. Besides, 20 percent of all fresh water pollution is made by textile treatment and dyeing. Pollutants released by the global textile industry are continuously doing unimaginable harm to the environment.
It pollutes land and makes them useless and barren in the long run. Surveys show that cotton consumes the highest amount of harmful pesticides and fertilizers.
Majority of them fall on land while they are sprinkled on the crop. Similarly, textile manufacturing units release hazardous waste into the nearby land.
A study was conducted to test the amount of metals present in soil and groundwater located near to the textile and tannery industries in Haridwar, India. They can cause many problems in living beings. The hazardous effects of the use of toxic fertilizers in the farms are the highest in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. A case of caught attention when four US companies based in South Carolina mixed large amounts of hazardous wastes into a shipment containing fertilizers.
The wastes contained huge quantities of lead and cadmium. This shipment was purchased by Bangladesh. Before the reality came into limelight, it was used in farms across the country. Children sprinkled these fertilizers in farms without any protection and were negatively affected by its exposure. The textile industry uses millions of gallons of water everyday. The problem does not rest in the high usage, though!
The waste is not treated to remove pollutants from it before it is disposed to water bodies. The waste water usually contains PBDEs, phthalates, organochlorines, lead, and many other chemicals that cause severe health problems and diseases in human beings.
The liquid effluents released by the textile industry are the most disturbing area of concern. This is because the toxic material released through liquid waste is vast in quantity. It takes about gallons of water to produce one cotton shirt. It takes about 2, gallons of water to produce a pair of jeans. In Uzbekistan, for example, cotton farming used up so much water from the Aral Sea that it dried up after about 50 years. Fashion causes water-pollution problems, too. The dyeing process uses enough water to fill 2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools each year.
Some apparel companies are starting to buck these trends by joining initiatives to cut back on textile pollution and grow cotton more sustainably. In March, the UN launched the Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, which will coordinate efforts across agencies to make the industry less harmful.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. Wind turbines have a service life of around 20 years. After that, they can be retired and reused for other purposes such as bike shelters. I accept. The industry emits more carbon than international flights and maritime shipping combined.
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