Green Cotton

photosource: www.jetsongreen.com

By Erin Dale

The April 2008 Glamour magazine (the green fashion issue) featured an article called “10 simple ways to green-over your home.” The three-page spread shows a twenty-something’s New York studio apartment receiving several green tweaks, from new eco paint and wallpaper jobs to replacing the towels and bed sheets with those made from organic cotton. Some of these tweaks were chic and helpful, like a recycling center with stackable bins that blend in.

However, I had to wonder how much of this makeover was actually necessary; sure, Glamour needed a green story for their eco-issue, but what about homes in the real world? As much fun as it is to makeover your abode, it’s important not to go eco-crazy, running out and buying new products simply because they claim to be green (and may not be fair-trade, either). But I don’t want to ruin the makeover fun— so if something old needs replacing, or you just can’t wait to try out a new paint color, there are plenty of green options to make your place eco-chic.

(1) Matresses. I’m in the market for a new mattress, and searching for a green replacement is tougher than I thought. Until I started researching the subject, I didn’t know that most mattresses are treated with flame-retardant chemicals like polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). These chemicals don’t stay on your mattress; they eventually leach into your skin. I’ve got layers of egg crates and a cotton mattress cover that acts as a barrier between the mattress and my skin, but those aren’t organic, either. And the flame retardants aren’t the only problem; a mattress should be made with natural latex and untreated wood. The difficulty with a lot of organic mattresses (for the vegan shopper, at least) is that they’re made from wool. So what if I want a chemical and wool-free mattress? Thankfully, I found a site that finished the intense search for me. Greenyour.com has a good variety of organic mattresses, including one that doesn’t have wool. The downside: because it’s completely chemical-free, it requires a doctor’s note to order. The price is no picnic, but I’m keeping in mind that buying organic means supporting sustainable industries. After I’ve made an informed purchase, I’ll recycle the old mattress!

(2) Bedframes. My bed frame doesn’t need replacing, but if yours does, look for one made from renewable or recycled materials. If it’s a wooden frame, it’s important to buy one made from FSC-certified wood. According to greenyour.com, the Forest Stewardship Council gives a seal of approval for sustainably-harvested wood. Of course, this goes for the rest of your furniture, too. Since I love vintage shopping, I tend to scour antique stores and yard sales before buying anything new. Or you could freshen up an old piece of furniture by having it refurbished, which uses way less energy than buying a new one.

(3) Furniture. To score used furniture (and other goods), you can try one of my addictions: Freecycle.org. This online community encourages you to ask for used items you want, but make sure you offer up your old stuff, too. It’s not a bartering system— trading items is highly discouraged, even forbidden in some groups, since the site exists for the sake of recycling and goodwill. Join your local chapter, and you’ll be surprised at the cool things your neighbors are just giving away!

(4) Carpeting/flooring. Thinking about carpeting your place? Think again. Like conventionally manufactured mattresses, carpets are loaded with bad-for-you chemicals— like volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Even steam cleaning doesn’t make them go away. If you don’t have carpeting, revel in the gorgeousness of hardwood floors; if you have carpeting, care for it as best you can. When it needs replacing, install hardwood floors, try alternative floor coverings (like natural linoleum) or buy carpeting in tiles to cut down on waste. Try Interface or Flor. For more environmentally responsible carpet choices, check out some guidelines here.

(5) Paint. And when it’s time for a paint job, avoid oil-based paints with VOCs that are harmful to you and pollute the atmosphere. Glamour recommends Benjamin Moore’s Aura paints, but they are only low-VOC; the brand’s Eco-Spec paint is odorless and toxin-free. You could also try latex-, water-, plant-, mineral-, or milk-based paints. Greenyour.com is another great resource for these natural paints.

Not into paint? Glamour spruced up an apartment using wallpaper “made with nontoxic glues and environmentally friendly fabric.” It’s crucial to avoid paper made with vinyl (which is really toxic PVC). Mod Green Pod makes really cute, hand silk-screened wallpapers— and the inks are water-based and non-toxic.

(6) Cleaning products. And don’t forget—an eco home makeover involves more than just greening the furniture, floors or wallpaper. You have to use something to clean all of that with, right? It’s high time to switch to environmentally safe cleaning products. Regular ones contain VOCs and other toxic chemicals; and when you’re done “cleaning” with these products that actually pollute the air in your home, the chemicals in the bottle you toss out will seep back into the ground. Green Clean will help you green your supply closet, but you can find these things yourself by merely reading the labels. In “Green Chic” (my eco-Bible), Christie Matheson offers a great cleaning product checklist.

Only use products that:

• List their ingredients (many conventional cleaners don’t)
• Contain no chlorine, anything that starts with chlor, or ammonia
• Are certified biodegradable and free of synthetic chemicals
• Come in recyclable packaging

You can make up your own similar checklist when shopping for any kind of green product for your home. Just ask yourself if now is the time for a green makeover before you go shopping; if it is, follow these guidelines and buy with a clear conscience.

What do you think of green makeovers, and how far would you go to green-over your home? Do you think these things really make a difference?

Linda Loudermilk denim featured at http://girldir.com

By Brit

Apart from the lycra to make skinny jeans fit supernaturally tight, jeans are made of cotton. Cotton, the most popular natural fiber in the world, is also one of the most pesticide-dependent crops, making a switch to organic cotton not just desirable, but vital.

In response to consumer demand, more and more farmers are converting to organic cotton. The current definition of organic cotton means that which is grown organically, in the same way as a food crop. Once the cotton has been picked, however, there are no standards for organic processing.

Cotton processing workers are exposed to heavy machinery, and cotton dust which irritates the lungs. And then there’s the weaving, then cutting and sewing, and dying of the garments. The rise of organically grown cotton is wonderful, but if the workers who process it and sew and dye the garments are being subjected to the same low standards as regular garment workers traditionally are, then we have not come all that far.

Organic cotton is almost always ginned and milled on the same machines as regular cotton, which would imply those who process it labor under the same conditions. “Ginning” has nothing to do with Tanqueray – it is the process where cotton seeds are removed from the cotton fibers.

And then, once the fabric is made, and the jeans are cut and sewn, they are dyed, and then depending on the style, distressed, faded, resin coated, using chemicals and enzymes. Synthetic dyes are notorious pollutants and their use consumes several gallons of water to dye one pair of jeans. White and pale colored jeans no better – they are bleached.

Despite the popularity of organic t-shirts and baby clothes, organic denim is still nowhere near as prolific as you would expect, especially considering most women’s wardrobes revolve around the perfect pair (or eight) of jeans.

Here’s a look at some high-profile and lesser-known organic denim labels.

Levi’s organic denim at shown at treehugger.com

Levi’s launched the Eco range of organic cotton jeans in 2007, but how ecological are they? Is it possible to make a fairly traded organic pair for $70? Compare, the Levi’s Capital E premium jeans, hand sewn, dyed with natural indigo, and hand processed with minimal chemicals, which retail at $198.

Edun denim featured at www.tobi.com

Bono, Ali Hewson and Rogan Gregory brought organic, fairly traded jeans to international attention with Edun. The brand emphasises fair trade and fair working conditions in their factories. Edun’s signature inky blue denim styles are worthy of the amount of times they have graced red carpets.

Rogan Gregory’s other lines, Rogan, and Loomstate, also use organic fabrics, “All Loomstate factory partners are required to adhere to a code of conduct and Terms of Engagement in our company manufacturing agreement. These factories must use the highest environmental and labor standards, controlling factory pollution, and enforcing fair labor as the cornerstone of the effort.” Edun and Loomstate jeans retail for $150-$200, with Rogan jeans running around $250.

Kuyichi denim at www.inhabitat.com

Kuyichi are a Dutch company who are trying to make the field-to-store process as ecological and sustainable as possible. Kuyichi jeans are made of fairly traded Peruvian cotton. The cotton farmers are partners in the company, and they get to voice problems, and share in the profits. Not officially available in the US (yet) but can be obtained through retailers like ASOS who ship to the States. The desirable lightweight boyfriend trousers are $150, comparable with other premium denim brands.

Good Society denim featured at www.slingandstones.com

Slings and Stones American grown (and Japanese processed – but let’s not pick about air miles) organic cotton skinny jeans can out-skinny the best of them. The slim-cut denims are fair trade, and the neat detailing, particularly the zig-zag yoke, sets these apart. I love the square button and rivets, all handmade and antiqued in India from 24K gold. Anyone else noticed the trend for gold hardware on designer denim? I can’t decide if it’s tasteful or tacky.

Sharkah Chakra denim found at www.hippyshopper.com

Sharkah Chakra jeans are gorgeous, made with handpicked cotton, woven on hand looms in India, and signed by the person who made them. They have pretty pocket detailing, a beyond-fabulous fit, and more of that gold hardware. They “lay claim to having created the greenest jeans available in the world of fashion”. A neat touch is the option to order your size with a variety of inseams, but then I would expect a certain amount of customization for the $330 price tag.

ROMP, a British design duo in the process of conquering Los Angeles, claim to be the ‘World’s First Soil Association Certified and Global Organic Textile Standard Certified Couture Fashion House,’ with their body-conscious dresses and denim. Their innovative website offers you a chance to trace where the garment was sewn, the fabric processed, (with vegetable dyes and natural bleaches) and the cotton grown. The $340 white cotton wide-leg jeans are on my dream-big-wish-list for this summer. I would be skipping the paradoxical accompanying fox-tail though. (Note: their glitzy website should not be viewed on anything other than broadband, or your internet browser will suffer the same fate as the fox.)

$300 pairs of jeans, however worthy, are just not in the budget of most people. Here’s a label to watch out for: Good Society, who “present an affordably priced, forward thinking collection that is fully sustainable – both ecologically and socially”. Good Society organic, fair trade jeans run around $100 and their sleek, clean style is what I’ll be choosing for my summer denim purchase. A raw denim indigo skinny pair would be perfect in my wardrobe.

Organic jeans – true, all the way from cotton seed to wardrobe organic jeans – do exist. Independent companies who know that if they take the lead to produce jeans with the least footprint possible, then people who are equally committed to living lightly on the planet will buy them, and other designers and manufacturers will be inspired to follow.

We’ve forgotten how much work it is to make things by hand. Making one pair of jeans involves an incredible amount of work, and the price of a fairly-traded, organic pair reflects what it actually costs to pay people a living wage to plant grow, harvest, sort, gin, mill, weave, cut, sew, dye and process one pair of jeans.

It’s hard to stop thinking about jeans as a garment for the masses, as they have been throughout their history. But perhaps it’s time to respect what actually goes into one pair of jeans, and instead of buying one, or two, or three cheap jeans, choose and love one organic pair.

What is your favorite pair of organic jeans? Tell us about them….greencottonblog@gmail.com

Photo: organic silk lingerie at keetsa.com

By Brit

Silk is one of the most unique, and one of the oldest fabrics in the world.

Much of the silk produced today is made from the cocoons spun by the larvae of the Bombyx mori moth, the mulberry silkworm. When a silkworm hatches from it’s egg, it ravenously consumes fresh mulberry leaves for just over a month, growing from a tiny speck to a fat caterpillar. The silkworm then begins spinning a cocoon of silk filament. In 2-3 days the silkworm can spin a continuous thread up to one mile long around itself, at which point it plans to begin it’s metamorphosis into a moth.

The silk producers have other ideas: they boil the silkworms in water, and the cocoons are unreeled onto spinning wheels which twist several filaments together to make fibres. These fibres are then woven into silk fabric.

This, clearly, is not a happy ending for the silkworm, and that’s just one of many issues with wearing silk.

One mile of filament sounds like a lot, but it takes thousands of silkworms, and many pounds of mulberry leaves to make a dress. 1 acre of mulberry trees produces over 11 tons of leaves, which will feed 240 lbs of silkworms and their cocoons, and will yield just 37 lbs of raw silk.

Like other commercial crops, the mulberry trees occupy land, consume water, and require “a plentiful supply of fertilizers” to produce a high yield of leaves. And growing a plant that bugs love to eat means controlling the bugs that you don’t want to eat it. Mulberry trees are sprayed with pesticides to kill the many other insects who also think that they are tasty.

Chemicals can also be used on the silkworms to increase the amount of silk produced. Methoprene is an insecticide and hormone disrupter which may be applied to silkworms to slow their growth rate and extend the time they spin silk.

Once a luxury fabric reserved for Chinese empresses and emperors, today silk is an mass-production industry with intense pressure on prices. While high-quality, handmade silks are still used for gowns and high-end designer clothing, most silk manufacture is a maximum-output-for-minimum-input business. Most silk production takes place in China, and a significant amount in India; neither country is known for workers rights. When Forever 21 can turn out pure silk dresses for under $30, labor concerns come to mind for the people working in the silk factories.

As well as labor concerns, health issues also afflict silk workers. Silk workers who process raw silk often suffer from asthma and respiratory diseases caused by a fine dust from the gum that binds the strands secreted by the silkworm, and a host of unpleasant skin problems.

So what’s the alternative?

Organic Silk

A lot of garments are sold as being made from “organic silk”. But currently, there is no formal standard in the US or anywhere else for organic silk. Moves have been made towards a standard so organically produced garments can be labelled as such. There’s a precedent in organic standards for raising crops, and for raising animals, so presumably organic silk would involve growing the mulberry trees organically, without chemicals, and raising the silkworms humanely and without hormones. But as there is no standard, the term “organic silk” presently doesn’t mean anything.

Peace Silk

Mahatma Ghandi criticized the wearing of silk for the killing of silkworms. Some silk producers allow the silkworms to hatch into moths from their cocoons, then spin silk from the cocoons in a way similar to spinning wool. As the moths hatch, they chew a hole through the cocoons which makes reeling the silk in a continuous strand impossible. Peace silk is not as strong as conventional silk, but has a softer texture. One caveat: commercial silkworms have been selectively bred to make silk, and only make silk. All a Bombyx mori moth can do is mate, and die. They have vestigial wings, they can’t eat, and only live for a few hours after hatching. There’s no flying wild and free.

Wild Silk

Wild silk is more in line with animal rights. It is considered vegetarian, and is debatably vegan. Other species of wild moths spin silk cocoons, and once the moth has hatched, the cocoons are collected to make silk. The moth lives it’s natural life with no human interference – it has no need for the cocoon once hatched. Wild silk’s color, texture and lustre varies greatly with the species of moth, the leaves eaten, and the spinning and weaving methods used.

Most wild silk is produced in by small companies, co-operatives or individuals, and companies like Indigo Handloom integrate fair trade, fair wages and refusal to buy products created by child labor. With a similar philosophy, Amana, a British company, makes printed dresses and camisoles from wild silk which sell out infuriatingly fast; and Norwegian company Fin designs sleek, uptown garments which will keep their appeal for enough seasons to justify the higher price.

Recycled and Vintage Silk

A vintage silk dress, if it’s free from rot and stains (which sadly never come out) is a great investment. Silk, when cared for, can last for thousands of years – silk textiles over 4000 years old have been found in Chinese tombs.

Vintage silks lend themselves perfectly to recycling and re-working. These dresses, made from 1950s silk parachutes, seem positively youthful! And a search of the treasure trove of talent that is Etsy throws up many beautiful and ingenious ways to recycle silk into dresses, pillows, purses and accessories, like these slip dresses which I covet to wear to a summer picnic. And perhaps karma will stop the bugs – the silkworm’s distant relations – from biting me?

In sum, on the plus side, silk is durable (not to mention beautiful), lasting a really long time (up to thousands of years if preserved well!) and yet the resources needed to make silk are significant: from the water and pesticides to maintain mulberry trees, to the killing of silkworms to get the silk – all combined are a high cost. Organic silk does provide one alternative, but since that process is not yet certifiable, there are no guarantees that the process is pesticide-free, humane or resource conscious. Recycling old silks seems like a great alternative. Since the fabrics rarely degrade, it makes perfect sense to re-use and re-style.

Tell us what you think… What is your take on silk? Do you wear it and do you think it can be green? greencottonblog@gmail.com