Green Cotton

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.

Photo source: http://mission.itu.ch/MISSIONS/Myanmar/

What is Jute?
Jute is a long, shiny vegetable fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads.

Jute is comprised mostly of cellulose plant material AND lignin (a wood derivative). It is thus a ligno-cellulosic fiber –partially a textile fiber and partially wood (see Wikipedia for more).

The fibers are off-white to brown, and 1–4 meters (3–12 feet) long. Bangladesh is the world’s largest exporter of jute. Jute is grown in the same land-water area as rice and is a very difficult crop to grow and harvest. Other important jute export countries include India, China, Burma (Myanmar), Pakistan, Nepal and Thailand.

USES FOR JUTE

JUTE has seemingly limitless uses.

Core uses: twine and rope, sackings, carpets, wrapping fabrics (cotton bale), and the construction fabric manufacturing industry. It can be used in curtains, chair coverings, carpets, area rugs, hessian cloth, and backing for linoleum. Other uses include espadrilles, floor coverings, home textiles, high performance textiles, Geotextiles, and composites.

While jute is being replaced by synthetic materials in many of these uses, jute is still valuable due to its biodegradable nature. Synthetics are not suitable in some cases. For example certain planting containers for young trees planted directly without disturbing the roots, and land restoration cloth to prevent erosion while natural vegetation grows are two good uses.

Twine and Rope. A very popular use: jute fibers are used alone or blended with other types of fibers to make twine and rope.

Paper. Jute fibers can be turned into pulp and paper and with increasing concern over forest destruction for the wood pulp used to make most paper, the importance of jute for this purpose may increase.

Textile machineries such as textile fibers having cellulose (vegetable fiber content) and lignin (wood fiber content). Just is applied in the automobile, pulp and paper, and the furniture and bedding industries to manufacture non-wovens, technical textiles, and composites.

Home textiles. Jute has many advantages in home textiles, either replacing cotton or blending with it. It is a strong, durable, color and light-fast fiber. Its UV protection, sound and heat insulation, low thermal conduction and anti-static properties are advantageous. Jute fibers are also carbon-dioxide neutral, naturally decomposable and can be used in high performance technical materials.

Fabrics. Jute can be used for Hessian cloth, sacking, scrim, carpet backing cloth (CBC), canvas and even blended to make silk. Hessian, lighter than sacking, is used for bags, wrappers, wall-coverings, upholstery, and home furnishings. Sacking, a fabric made of heavy jute fibers, has its use in the name. CBC made of jute comes in two types.

Jute packaging is used as an eco-friendly substitute.

Floor coverings consist of woven, tufted and piled carpets. Jute non-wovens and composites can be used for underlay, linoleum substrate, and more.

Geotextiles made jute more popular in the agricultural sector. It is a lightly woven fabric made from natural fibers that is used for soil erosion control, seed protection, weed control, and many other agricultural and landscaping uses.

Food
Jute leaves are consumed in various parts of the world. It is a popular vegetable in West Africa. It is made into a common mucilaginous (somewhat “slimy”) soup or sauce in some West African cooking traditions.

JUTE PRODUCTION
Jute can be grown in 4–6 months with a huge amount of cellulose being produced from the jute hurd that can meet most of the wood needs of the world. Jute is the major crop among others that is able to protect deforestation. Jute is one of the most environmentally-friendly fibers. The expired fibers can be recycled more than once.

Additional Jute Resources (besides Wikipedia on Jute):
(1) The International Jute Study Group
(2) The Wisegeek on Jute

Stay tuned for more posts on Jute resources and companies using jute fiber for apparel!

Photosource: wikipedia on jute.

p.s. In case you are wondering what the most popular natural fiber world is, it is COTTON.

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Demand is surging. In a country that has steadfastly relied upon wool production– with some 25% of Australia’s land mass occupied by sheep flock, organic wool is taking hold among herders with for the first time, the highest premium on the market (20% over conventional fleeces). Looks like those Australians will be herding more and more of the organic curly haired ruminants!

clipped from www.treehugger.com The incentive for graziers to embrace organic wool is the same as that attract food farmers. Better returns. Organic wool is fetching up to a 20% premium over conventional fleeces. Elders Wool Marketing Manager Michael Blake observed that organic wool needed to be treated as mainstream – such was the demand – rather than as a niche, one-off line. wool continues to represent about 6% of the gross value of agricultural production, and our sheep flock of about 107 million curly haired ruminants apparently occupy some 25% of Australia’s land mass. Yet organic wool seemingly only makes up 1% of this renewable fibre crop.

This backpack looks really cool. I wonder about the recycled polyester though and how it will hold up in harsh weather conditions. Seems they are on the right track though. This french clothing company has a solid history.

clipped from www.treehugger.com When we saw that Lafuma had won another award for their Eco 40 Rucksack we knew it was time to dig around the notes we’ve had gathering dust since this product was released. During 2007 it has scored two gongs. First, the French Etoile de l’Observeur du Design and just last month the Ispo Performance Award for Eco-responsibility.