OLIVE EARTH

Off-late there is a lot of noise about eco-friendly clothing, even in India. Green branding has penetrated high-street and the hoi-polloi with equal elan. Anita Dongre now has her organic clothing line that debuted in 2008, so are many other India designers. But there is a lot of ambiguity on what exactly is meant by eco-frindly clothing. While for some green is expensive because eco-friendly material takes additional cost to be made fashionable, for some the recycled and refurbished constitues green and hence cheap. So what exactly constitutes green and eco-friendly clothing. We may not provide all the answers, but we are sure that this will certainly enlighten you before you head out to buy your next green pair of jeans.

Also, adding to the confusion, there are different materials that fall under the eco-friendly category. There is a broad agreement that plants such as bamboo, hemp and even seaweed don’t require pesticides, fertilizers or other chemicals and hence have a low footprint on the environment. When these are woven into fabric and then dyed using nontoxic pigments, we get our eco frindly clothes. But there are a few more dimensions to these. How the materials, and the clothes, are manufactured,  and where, and under what conditions are these dyed/manufactured, all play an important part in the larger sustainability equation.

Typically eco friendly clothes are made with ‘organic’ fibers, comprising of bamboo, corn, hemp, seaweed, soy, organic cotton and the like. Those who are vouching for the new trend emphasize the fact that production of clothing fibers is highly damaging to the environment, with cotton being one of the worst offenders. The manufacture and application of synthetic dyes are the cause of extensive industrial waste. Eco friendly clothes use natural and vegetable dyes. These dyes do not cause high degree of industral waste during production. The waste products can be composted and naturally disposed. Generally designers use fabrics that are recyclable, and with sustainable materials such as certified organic cotton, tencel, hemp and dead stock silk. For example, Anita Dongre's Grassroot strongly believes in the use of cellulosic and other organic fibres like viscose, modal, bamboo jersey etc.

How long does it take for different items to degrade on earth:

• Banana peel  3-4 weeks
• Paper bag  1 month
• Cotton cloth  5 months
• Woolen shawl  1 year
• Wood   5,10,20 years
• Leather shoe  40-50 years
• Tin can   50 - 100 years
• Aluminium can  200-500 years
• Plastic bag  1 million years
• Glass   Millions of years
  
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