Green Cotton

I just came across this site and am really psyched about this company. They appear to be very green and VERY hip with an edge on comfortable, stylish wears for the women on the run. While I must say their website got me from the beginning, I am now reading their ‘ABOUT’ section closely and noticed that they say their collection is made from 95% certified organically grown fibers, primarily bamboo. So, I now realize that there is a problem with that statement - bamboo is NOT certifiable organic because the process of turning it into bamboo is non-organic (it turns it into a synthetic fiber, like rayon).

So I guess I am going to have to take my enthusiasm down a notch, but I do give them a 10 on style. For a glimpse at their runway collection and their site.

Photosource above: http://web.mac.com/chryswong/THEBATTALION/HOME.html

Madder Plant used for natural dying.

By Brit

Before the middle of the nineteenth century, all dyes were extracted from plants, animals or minerals. Then, when synthetic dyes were discovered in 1856, textile producers found that synthetics were cheaper, easier to apply, more colorfast, and could be produced in a wider and brighter range of colors. Natural dyes quickly fell from favor, to be replaced by synthetic dyes for most applications.

Synthetic dyes can also be extremely toxic to manufacture, and harmful to dye workers. Textile factories where fabrics are dyed, consume vast quantities of water to dissolve the dye. Once the fabric is dyed, the dye-contaminated water is treated to some extent, then expelled into rivers.

As hazards and pollution due to synthetic dyes have become more apparent, more attention has been paid to natural dyes.

Natural dyes sound oh-so-good, conjuring up romantic images of dyeing wool with berries and herbs. Many crafters love working with natural dyes for their intrinsic color variability, and the challenge of mastering the skill of natural dying.

However, dying with a natural dyes can be difficult and there are downsides: the dyes are harder to apply to fabrics, and the process is more of an art than a science. The final color is affected by many variables which can be part of the charm of natural dyes, but also can lead to challenges in making them consistent and/or desirable.

For a commercial application, consistency is very important and is a major reason why natural dyes are rarely produced commercially.

Commercial natural dyes also unfortunately have a couple of serious side effects that in some cases render them harmful – in some cases as damaging as synthetic dyes. By the way, natural does not mean non-toxic; many natural substances are toxic.

• Most natural dyes require a mordant. Many mordants like salt, alum, and natural mordants like pomegranate are used in some cases, but for some colors, like to dye wool black, chromium, an extremely toxic heavy metal, is needed.

• Producing natural dyes from the plant, may involve harmful chemicals. Madder dye (see image of plat at top) is often extracted by dissolving the roots of the plant in sulphuric acid. Sodium hydroxide is needed to produce natural indigo dye.

• Natural dyes are not necessarily safe: natural indigo dye is a skin, eye and respiratory system irritant.

• Vegetarians and vegans take note: cochineal, a red dye, is made from ground up insects. Lac dye, a scarlet color, is also produced from insects. Both these dyes also require sodium hydroxide in their production.

• Issues with producing dyes on a commercial scale. Many natural dye plants grow in tropical areas where agricultural land is often at a premium. Reallocating land and water away from food crops, or clearing land to grow dye plants, is harmful to local people and the environment.

Lawsonia, or Henna plant (featured above) is used for a wide range of color derivatives for hair and other purposes. There are three species of this plant used for dying extracts.

So do natural dyes have just as many issues as synthetic ones? It appears that there are many considerations to weigh at the decision table. Fortunately, with considerate dyeing practices, natural dyes can be used in a much more environmentally friendly way than synthetic dyes.

Here’s some artists, designers and clothing companies who do use safe, natural dyes, and or other methods of dyeing fabrics naturally.

Earth Creations dye their organic cotton, sweatshop-free basics and active wear with clays and mud. Clay never, never comes off, doesn’t require any other chemicals, and when the dyeing is done, the clay be returned to the earth safely.

Investigate Tinctoria if you are heading to festivals, or packing for Ibiza. Tinctoria deliberately avoids harmful chemicals when dyeing their boho wares with natural dyes. ROMP, a British runway-worthy design house, also use similar safe dyes for their clothing and denim. Ocelot Clothing, from San Francisco, makes tribal-inspired prints using the ancient itajime dyeing technique.

And for men, Truly Organic Apparel has a range of mens’ - and womens’ too - clothes dyed with safe natural dyes.

ColorGrown cotton - also called FoxFibre, or Colorganic cotton - naturally grows in shades of creams, greens and browns so no further dye is required. The Colorgrown Clothing Company sells organic color grown baby hats, shirts and blankets, and basics and lingerie can be found at Cottonfield and Rawganique. Jonano also sells this gently colored cotton, including a cafe-au-lait colorgrown cotton dress that I’d love for a beach vacation.

So we can get our do yoga, sleep, and dress our children well in clothing colored with safe, natural dyes from a growing number of independent, caring companies.

Currently, our options for drinking cocktails, going to the office, a Raconteurs gig or a wedding are more limited. Where can we buy fashionable naturally dyed garments? Hopefully, with more heed being paid to the consequences of using synthetic dyes, more and more clothing designers will be answering that question soon.

Photo source top: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Haematoxylum_campechianum_Ypey69.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lawsonia_inermis_Ypey36.jpg

Over the weekend, Green Cotton underwent some significant upgrades that I am very excited about and would like to share with you:

1)    Green Cotton’s new domain. We switched to a new host so now we have the exclusive domain of www.greencottonblog.com.

2)    If you were using an RSS feed for Green Cotton, please resubscribe to this new site. The original Wordpress hosted blog (http://greencotton.wordpress.com) will no longer be updated.

3)    We added the ‘Add to Any’ feature to individual posts. In line with the latest media sharing tools, Green Cotton now has the capability for readers to share any of the posts with whomever they like using social networking and media bookmarking tools (such as del.icio.us, Facebook, Digg, MySpace and others). Pick the one of your choice. Please check out this feature (at the bottom of every post) and let us know what you think.

4)    Green Cotton joins Facebook. There is now a Green Cotton group on Facebook devoted to building an online community interested in eco-fashion and sustainability. While this group is an extension of the blog – (e.g., sharing snip-its of various posts we do) it will also include much more. There is a discussion board, the wall, and we want this group to be interactive. We want to hear from you. Join up and let us know what you think– what issues should be covered etc. The discussion topic of the day is on Factory Green and web 2.0 hitting the apparel industry – tell us what you think.

5)    The other place to check us out on Facebook is the Green Cotton page. This page is a great place to get up to date info on the blog and find out about new articles and companies we are reading about.  Come join us!

One of Green Cotton’s goals is to foster an online community passionate about the environment, fashion, style and sustainability. We’d love to hear from you– through our comments board, email, on facebook or elsewhere). Tell us what is on your mind and what’s new or hot in your neck of the woods.

Photosource: Natalie Portman’s Te Casan

By Erin Dale

To some, vegan fashion may sound like an oxymoron. One living the vegan lifestyle makes a point to avoid any animal products, whether for food or clothing; so for clothes to be truly vegan, materials like wool, leather, and even silk are strictly forbidden. Yes, your American Eagle jeans or canvas Keds may technically be considered vegan, but there’s more to it than that… True vegans are also environmentalists—one of the most effective ways to reduce your personal carbon emissions is to simply not eat meat. Compassion for animals extends to the ethical choices vegans make, including what to wear.

So what is vegan clothing exactly? Technically, its anything that doesn’t involve the use of animal products or by-products. By definition, synthetic fibers and conventional fabrics such as conventional cotton are OK and considered ‘vegan,’ However, if we also consider the fact that veganism also embraces environmentalism (as a philosophy and way of life), then synthetics and conventional fabrics would be excluded, or at least frowned upon.

Where can I find vegan clothing? When it comes to clothing, the term “vegan” may conjure up images of burlap slacks or jelly sandals, but there are plenty of fashion lines and enterprising celebrities attempting to bridge the gap between fashion and veganism. Of course, celebrity designers like Stella McCartney have been offering chic vegan wares for years. But vegan fashion has even been in the headlines lately, since Natalie Portman teamed up with specialty retailer Té Casan to design her own line of vegan shoes. Singer Leona Lewis, a hardcore vegan, is rumored to be starting an ethical, budget-friendly clothing line.

You don’t have to be a hippie or scour secondhand clothing racks to score cute vegan finds (though shopping vintage never hurts!). For the animal-loving fashionista, ethically-responsible threads are just a browser click away. Greenpeople.org lists umpteen links for eco-friendly fashion, with plenty of vegan sites in the mix. However, many of the vegan options look more “hippie chick” than “green chic.” I’ve narrowed the search to my favorite sites for clothes, shoes and accessories.

Alternativeoutfitters.com is a vegan’s haven for cute, cruelty-free fashions. Not all of the products listed are strictly vegan (there are Madden Girl shoes featured, for instance which are technically vegan but not necessarily eco-friendly), but many are eco-friendly. This is a great resource for vegan bags, wallets, and graphic tees, but fashion-forward vegans may crave something a little more high-end. NYArtificial offers trendy handbags made with high-tec, non-toxic materials, priced from $69 to $300 or more. Their wares include shopping totes, evening bags and briefcases. I like Bossa’s handbag collection even more: try shopbossa.com for everything from hobos to clutches.

Panda Snack sells luxury bamboo knits, and the fashions (for men and women) could not be cuter. Visit pandasnack.com to view the collection and find a list of retailers near you (I plan to look at them up close at Envi in Boston). I especially love their short pink dress with pleats and rouched sleeves.

While the vegan concept sounds great on paper, one must caution against jumping on the band wagon too quickly and trading ‘cruelty-free’ for carbon-heavy processing. Since vegan clothing does not require ‘organic processing’, its relatively easy to label a synthetic blouse made from petroleum by-products, blended with conventional cotton and made in a sweatshop, as ‘vegan’ since technically it is. However, is it actually good for the environment, good for you and good for humanity? That’s where your savvy shopping skills step in and hopefully the above resources may come in handy.

What does vegan clothing mean to you? Should we have a certification process to help identify items that are truly vegan? Tell us what you think greencottonblog@gmail.com

Photosource: www.passengerpigeon.ca

There’s never only one side to any story. Bamboo fabric is a classic example of a product that on the surface sounds very green. Bamboo plants grow incredibly quickly, can be planted in areas unsuitable for other crops, and rarely need any pesticides or herbicides. But issues arise with the way the fibres are processed and the fabric manufactured.

The most popular manufacturing process involves sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide, both highly toxic chemicals to humans, and when released into the environment. The majority of bamboo fabric production takes place in China, a country not renowned for worker’s rights or environmental respect.

Bamboo fabric may have something to learn from another material that’s been produced quietly, with little environmental fanfare, for the last twenty years. Lyocell, sold as Tencel, is a fabric made from wood pulp. Tencel and Tencel blends drape well and are used predominantly in dresses and formalwear.

Tencel is manufactured in a proprietary process by the Lenzing Group, a international group of companies based in Austria. Lenzing describe themselves as “committed to the principles of sustainable management and very high environmental standards.” Tencel is manufactured in a similar way to bamboo fabric, but with important differences that may be the solution to green bamboo fabric manufacturing.

Here’s the recipe. First, take some wood pulp. Lenzing’s pulp mill uses hardwood – mostly birch and oak - from sustainable forestry plantations. The trees are chemically pulped and bleached. Lenzing say they utilise a closed-loop process and don’t use chlorine bleach to minimize environmental impact. However, Lenzing also buys wood pulp and their website becomes vague as to what conditions their suppliers’ wood pulp is manufactured under.

Next, the wood pulp is turned into fibres through a process called “solvent spinning”. Wood pulp is dissolved in a chemical called N-Methylmorpholine N-oxide (NMNO). The liquid is squirted through thousands of tiny holes in a spinneret, forming individual Tencel fibers. The spun fibres are washed, the NMNO is retrieved from the water, and it is purified, and reused in a 99% closed-loop process. NMNO can be toxic, but much less so than the sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide used for processing bamboo. Small quantities of NMMO are actually produced in the body as a metabolite of several common drugs.

With a sustainable source of wood pulp, Tencel manufacturing has a much lower environmental impact than bamboo fabric. But despite considerate forestry practices, tree farms are more damaging to the ecosystem than growing bamboo. When natural forests are cleared for farms the local ecosystem suffers from the reduction in bio-diversity in the area. Bamboo is the slight winner here: it naturally colonises areas other plants find challenging and often grows with few other species for company, so it has less environmental impact when planted as a monocrop on a farm. Bamboo also grows much faster than hardwood trees, processing many times more CO2 from the environment than trees can.

Bamboo can be grown ecologically, and because of the increasing popularity of bamboo, companies are developing new, greener, ways to process the fibres ecologically, inspired by Tencel processing. Companies like Pure Bamboo are using new closed-loop processing methods, and hopefully more will follow.

Tencel is currently more eco-friendly to manufacture, and – depending on your standards – acceptably eco-friendly to grow. But bamboo fabric has the potential to be a true eco-friendly cloth.

For more on Tencel, What is Tencel on Wisegeek.

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This post was written by one of Green Cotton’s contributing writer’s Brit.