1 green Thing: You have to read the garment labels!
By Jan Herbert
Rockford Park District
Whether you were “green” before the color was fashionable or whether you’re just ready to find the “shade” that works best for you, here’s information about doing just “one green thing.”
Cotton has long been my preferred fabric for clothing. It breathes, it wicks, and it is natural. Assuming that being natural is being green, discovering a garment made of fabulous cotton always leaves me with a great feeling. Some articles contain information about recycled materials such as plastic bottles, but then my reading at www.greenlivingonline.com offered the following about fabrics and fibers not thought of previously:
υ Organic Cotton: This is a healthy alternative to conventionally-grown cotton because it receives no treatment with pesticides or other chemicals. Purchase it in natural shades (cream, pale green, light brown) or when colored with vegetable-based dyes.
υ Linen: Long-lasting, allergy-free, breathable, and naturally anti-bacterial. Look for true linen made from flax plant, a crop that requires five times less pesticides and fertilizers than conventional cotton.
υ Hemp: This crop requires no chemicals to grow and is drought-tolerant! Naturally resistant to mold and ultraviolet light, the fiber is considered to be one of the Earth’s longest, strongest and most durable.
υ Alpaca: Harvesting of this wool is cruelty-free, and it requires little or no chemical treatment to create fiber products. An average alpaca eats less per pound than most livestock, and their digestive system yields a naturally pH-balanced fertilizer (now that is an eco-animal!).
υ Soy Fabric: Often referred to as “vegetable cashmere,” soy fabric is absorbent, warm, resistant to bacteria, and biodegradable. Chemicals used to process soy are recycled and used again.
It’s more label reading for me. I wonder, will garments made of those fabrics be found in thrift stores?
For more information, e-mail Jan Herbert at JanHerbert@RockfordParkdistrict.org.
From the October 7-13, 2009 issue
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2 Comments
It’s interesting that you brought up looking for green clothing. We’ve been thinking lately about ways that we might take more producer responsibility for our product and are thinking of developing a clothing line with articles made from recycled biodegradable plastic bottles. As an environmental company we developed a biodegradable plastic bottle that we believe will help reduce plastic pollution. We also believe that all products should be designed to be more environmentally responsible. You may have heard of designing products to meet a “Cradle to Cradle” criteria? ENSO believes that products and packaging should be more than just produce and forget. We developed a biodegradable plastic bottle that can be used, reused (wash between uses), recycled and reclaimed. When our bottle ends up in a microbial environment it will biodegrade into biogases that can be captured to produce clean energy. We have been thinking about other uses for recycled ENSO biodegradable plastic bottles and thought a good use might be clothing. A lot of clothing is currently made from plastic products and what better use of a recycled plastic bottle than to make it into recyclable and biodegradable clothing. The clothing could used, recycled and should it end up in a landfill, can produce clean energy. By the way, ENSO promotes the development and construction of “Bio-reactor” landfills which are designed to have a longer life, enhance biodegradation and efficiently capture biogases for use in producing clean energy.
That’s what an ENSO is, a complete circle and that’s what we want our products to become.
Max
http:www.ensobottles.com
Very informative. I ever read about organic cotton. I bookmarked this link for my reference. Thanks for sharing with us.