Transcript Organic Fabrics - Health & Social Care & D&T Teaching Resource

Organic Fabrics &
Ethical Trading Standards
Many manufacturers are now
producing products that come from an
organic source, and are also produced
with good Ethical Trading Standards.
Consumer demand has influenced the
type of products we now wish to buy.
Therefore, many companies are
producing a variety of ‘good quality’
products that have been produced
from an organic and politically
sustainable source.
Why is this type of
product necessary,
and how can we as a
consumer help to
promote such goods
and ?
Cotton is one of the most
environmentally
destructive agricultural
crops, annually using
over 275 million pounds
of pesticides in the US
alone. This is in addition
to massive quantities of
fertilizers, defoliants,
growth regulators, and
general biocides.
What type of organic
crops are grown?
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Organic cotton (cotton if grown in an organic
way is very good)
Hemp ( yields well)
Linen (one of the oldest fibres known to man)
Bamboo (highly absorbent)
Nettle (once established remains in production
for several years)
Kenaf (grows fast and yields up to six times a
year)
Ramie (commonly known as Chinese grass,
white ramie, green ramie)
Quinoa (slow to grow)
Hemp is so gentle on the land that it can be
grown year after year in the same location.
The Many Benefits Of Hemp Agriculture
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Hemp is the most environmentally positive crop,
improving soil quality as it grows. It requires no
herbicides and is naturally resistant to insects,
fungus, and other pests.
Hemp grows rapidly during its vegetative period,
becoming tall and thick. It suppresses weeds,
and shades and mulches the ground, which its
deep taproots break up and aerate.
These attributes promote healthy microbial soil
life and leave the earth in a condition where it is
easily worked and able to retain moisture during
the next growing season.
Hemp Products
Striped Vegan Organic Hemp Beanie
Born of Nature
Newborn Tee and Pants Set
The production of bamboo fibre
around the world happens by
two different processes, -- the
chemical method and the
mechanical way, which is more
labor intensive. The chemical
process releases a larger amount
of toxins. The mechanical
process is more labor intensive
and more costly, but produces
significantly less pollution.
Because of the production
costs bamboo products are
still very expensive to buy.
Unbeatable for natural softness, with
a beautiful silky lustre, these towels
are 4 times more absorbent than
cotton towels. Bamboo's natural antibacterial properties and softness are
especially suitable for the most
sensitive skin.
Bamboo Towel
When we produce
Textiles we need to
think about the work
force why?
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Why we need to promote
Ethical Trading Standards in the
Textile Industry
Video Katharine Hamnett ‘Clean up or Die’, katharinehamnett.com
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Labour issues
It employs a billion people: (one in six of the
world’s population).
Labour and pay conditions for millions of
garment, shoe and textile workers are appalling.
Many cotton farmers are living in conditions
worse than slavery and in its quest for cheaper
and cheaper manufacturing prices it is now
condemning people across the world to terrible
lives. At the same time it creates unemployment
in Western economies, with manufacturing job
flight to cheap labour areas in countries with
appalling human rights records like China,
Burma, Philippines and Mexico.
The fact that China was allowed into the World
Trade Organisation beggars belief and is also one
of the great missed opportunities of the 20th
century to turn a police state into a democracy.
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Insisting on imposing environmental standards as
a condition for trade will have one of two effects.
Either it will create substantial tension with
emerging economies, who rightly claim that
today's advanced economies ignored the
environment when they grew rich. In this case
the efforts will be unsuccessful and the political
consequences harmful. Or else the efforts will be
successful, but at the cost of condemning billions
of people in emerging economies to continued
poverty. But that would be self-defeating,
since history shows that people care more
about the environment the richer they are.
Ultimately, the best way to improve the world's
environment is to help poor countries grow rich.
An easy way to do that is to practice free trade.
Across the developing world at least a thousand free trade zones
have been created. Known as Export Processing Zones (EPZ’s) and
employing over 27 million workers, they are industrial areas, where,
typically factory owners pay no tax, the minimum wage is
suspended and safety is neglected.
Get ‘yourselves’ onto Katharine’s sites and Myspace.com and find out
what she has researched.
The dollar a day dress - a guide
Alpaca wool from Peru
In Peru, farmers face the loss of the
country's most valuable resource, as the
quality and price of wool from the famed
Andean alpaca suffers from poor breeding
methods. The animals' wool is one of the
world's most luxurious and expensive
fabrics.
In Mali, one of the poorest countries in
the world, farmers were encouraged to
grow cotton. But as cotton prices on the
world market drops, they face what
critics call unfair competition from
heavily subsidised US cotton farmers.
The West gives fifty billion dollars every
year in aid but over three hundred
billion dollars in subsidies to its own
farmers.
20,000 people die every year from accidental pesticide poisoning in
conventional cotton agriculture (World Health Organisation). Death by
starvation is alarmingly prevalent and 200,000 cotton farmers commit
suicide annually due to spiralling debts incurred from buying pesticides.
A further 1,000,000 people a year suffer from long-term pesticide poisoning
(Pesticide Action Network).