We wish you all a wonderful holiday season. We’ll be back in early 2012!
We wish you all a wonderful holiday season. We’ll be back in early 2012!
If you’ve bought baby bottles or water bottles recently, I’m sure you’ve seen a prominent “BPA Free” sign on the container. BPA stands for Bisphenol A, a chemical often used to make clear, polycarbonate plastics (like water and baby bottles and also eyeglass lenses, medical devices, CDs and DVDs, cell phones and computers). And though it …
Last week we reviewed the ways enzymes are helping to give textile processes a lighter footprint while at the same time producing better finished goods – at a lower cost. Seems to be a win/win situation, until you begin to unpeel the onion: It begins with the production of the enzyme: Enzymes have always been …
Humankind has used enzymes for thousands of years to carry out important chemical reactions for making products such as cheese, beer, and wine. Bread and yogurt also owe their flavor and texture to a range of enzyme producing organisms that were domesticated many years ago. In the textile industry, one of the first areas which …
I really love Thanksgiving – it’s hard to ruin this holiday. Thanksgiving can be about nothing more than the name implies… expecting nothing, but giving profound thanks for our imperfect, nutty, busy, fractured, silly, wonderful lives. And since Thanksgiving asks us to slow down and think about all that we have to be thankful for, …
For tens of thousands of years, humans relied on nature to provide them with everything they needed to make their lives more comfortable -cotton and wool for clothes, wood for furniture, clay and ceramic for storage containers, even plants for medicines. But this all changed during the first half of the twentieth century, when organic chemistry developed methods to …
I just read an article about “green marketing” and how the manufacturer should downplay the green aspects of a product because “very few Americans have ever bought stuff because they want to save the planet.”[1] And I agree that most people just want their stuff, not a sermon. But when I hear something along the …
At the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM ) Congress in February, 2011, Ann Shankar from Biodye India, a company that produces natural dyes based on wild plants, made a provocative suggestion – that the term “organic textile” is not an accurate description of any textile where synthetic dyes and auxiliaries are used. The …
A half century ago, asbestos – a ” 100% natural” material by the way – was hailed as the wonder fiber of the 20th century. It was principally used for its heat resistant properties and to protect property (and incidentally, human lives) from the ravages of fire. Because of this, asbestos was used in virtually all industrial …
Polyester is a very popular fabric choice – it is, in fact, the most popular of all the synthetics. Because it can often have a synthetic feel, it is often blended with natural fibers, to get the benefit of natural fibers which breathe and feel good next to the skin, coupled with polyester’s durability, water …
OEcotextiles 