Why do we say we want to change the textile industry? Why do we say we want to produce fabrics in ways that are non-toxic, ethical and sustainable? What could be so bad about the fabrics we live with? The textile industry is enormous, and because of its size its impacts are profound. It uses …
One thing that most people care about is how the cushions feel to them – do you like to sink down into the cushions or you like a denser, more supportive cushion? Either way, the cushions are important. Before plastics, our grandparents filled cushions with feathers, horsehair, wool or cotton batting – even straw …
Time sure flies doesn’t it? I’ve been promising to reiterate the effects the textile industry has on climate change, so I’m re-posting a blog post we published in 2013: In considering fabric for your sofa, let’s be altruistic and look at the impact textile production has on global climate change. (I only use the term …
In the August 28, 2014 issue of Huff Post Green, an article by Bob Marshall of The Lens caught me eye, because it’s another instance of climate change affecting the landscape in one of our most vulnerable areas: the Louisiana delta. I’ve excerpted some of it; if you want to read the full article, …
How does this topic relate to the textile industry? Well, it just so happens that the textile industry is huge – and a huge producer of greenhouse gasses. The textile industry, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, is the 5th largest contributor to CO2 emissions in the United States, after primary metals, nonmetallic mineral products, …
From Alaska to Southern California, sea stars (or as I call them, starfish. But scientists like to point out they’re not fish, ergo: “sea stars”) are dying by the millions. Drew Harvell, a marine epidemiologist at Cornell University, calls it the largest documented marine epidemic in human history. The disease deflates …
In considering fabric for your sofa, let’s be altruistic and look at the impact textile production has on global climate change. (I only use the term altruistic because many of us don’t equate climate change with our own lives, though there have been several interesting studies of just how the changes will impact us directly, …
I just saw this powerful video based on a recent editorial by Bill McKibben in the Washington Post on May 23, 2011. Narritation is by Stephen Thomson of Plomomedia.com, who accompanies the piece with striking footage of the events Bill wrote about.
We published this blog almost two years ago, but the concepts haven’t changed and we think it’s very important. So here it is again: Although most of the current focus on lightening our carbon footprint revolves around transportation and heating issues, the modest little fabric all around you turns out to be from an industry …
Earth Day is coming up and I am having a hard time with climate change. It’s such a big, complicated issue. Climate change, according to Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED), is inherently abstract, scientifically complex, and globally diffused in causes and consequences. People have a hard time grasping the concept, let …
OEcotextiles 