Textiles and Bicycles

Ride it like you know you should. (shout-out to my shameless Khia fans)

I found this on the Gristmill blog, but in case you’re not a loyal Grist reader…this is amazing.

It’s a Hungarian ad…clearly in favor of biking. Apparently they build bikes differently out there. Vibrating seats perhaps.

The Grist post has some great comments mentioning some upcoming bicycle events that I encourage you all to take part in, like May 16th’s Bike to Work Day. I’m not sure if this is nationwide, the commenter mentions the one in San Francisco, but there will definitely be one in DC, courtesy of WABA and co-sponsored by the organization I work for. I will definitely be participating and hope that all of you can join in wherever you are. If you’re not a regular bike-to-worker it’s a great way to introduce yourself to it–and see how doable it can be even once in a while. If we could all try and substitute just one car trip a week with a walk or bike trip it would make a significant positive impact on our physical fitness, air and water quality, and that always looming problem of climate change.

Another event coming up on May 21st is the Ride of Silence, which is a silent, slow-paced ride in honor of those that have been injured or killed while riding on public roads. This is something I feel strongly about, because even with a fair amount of bike lanes in DC, car drivers (and pedestrians) are often oblivious to bikers. The 2 ton bubble that a car provides seems to give drivers a sufficiently dangerous air of invincibility. And they forget that those of us using that bubble-less form of transportation with infinite gas mileage are anything but invincible.

And lastly, on a happier note, if you’re in DC on May 23rd, head over to the Black Cat for…wait for it….

The Bike Prom!

In June of this year a major Australian wool supplier (Elder Limited) will start sales of specifically non-mulesed wool for foreign markets.  You may already know that Australia is scheduled to phase out mulesing by 2010, but this is a preliminary step to start identifying whether wool is coming from a mulesed sheep or a non-mulesed sheep (as part of the Australian Wool Industry’s 2007 agreement with PETA).

I’m not sure how this will translate into labeling for consumer goods, but hopefully the identification will trickle down in a clear way.  Or else those that wish to know will have to research where labels source their materials…which is an unlikely practice en masse.

For those that don’t know what mulesing is, the wikipedia article on it is decent.  It’s hard to find objective sources of information…and the subject sparks a lot of heat between consumers and producers.

I may not be down with made in China, but it seems made in Turkey is getting better everyday. A giant Turkish textile mill, Bossa, which supplies brands like H&M, Calvin Klein, Habitual and Nudie Jeans with organic cotton and denim is expanding its eco-friendly operations. It’s investing like crazy to make organics 10% of its total production and will start including fabrics from linen, hemp, soybean and wool.

I actually always notice that H&M’s organic clothing is generally (or possibly always) made in Turkey, as is some of their conventional clothing as well.

What’s interesting is it seems that Turkish mills acknowledge that they can’t keep up with India and China in terms of price, so they’re consciously trying to cater to higher aesthetic and moral values to give them a leg up — or at least a place to stand. I’ll take that. While I don’t think “green” is about shopping, I think it’s promising that “eco-friendly” is becoming a strong enough value on which even huge, global operations can begin to stand on in a real way. It’s even more promising that that these mills can carve out an environmentally and economically sustainable niche against the almighty price signal delivered so powerfully by the often irresponsible textile production practices in both India and China. It’s as though in the clamor to prove that just because it’s more expensive doesn’t mean it’s better, we forgot that if it’s really cheap it’s probably for a reason…

Aside from the labor concerns across the developing world, there are some interesting facts I found that really drive home how destructive conventional cotton production can be not only to the environment, but to human health. These can probably transcend cotton production into many realms of manufacturing.

In the United States, 25% of all pesticides used are applied to cotton.

Five of the top nine pesticides used on cotton are cancer-causing chemicals (cyanazine, dicofol, naled, propargite, and trifluralin).

In India, 91% of male cotton farm workers regularly exposed to pesticides eight hours or more per day experience some type of health disorder, including chromosomal aberrations, cell death and cell decay

Too bad all of these negative externalities, like pollution, environmental injustice upon the globe’s poor, and the true costs of transport are still just that: external, and not factored into the price. Somehow it’s the organic stuff that’s more expensive.  Damn economies of scale.