The stop of TextileExchange which set out for a cleaner world in cooperation with the farmers, textile manufacturers and retailers throughout the world was Istanbul this year. Held on 11-13 November with the theme of “Future is Now”, the conference took place with international participation in The Marmara Hotel located in Taksim under the sponsorship of Sanko, Nike and Bossa Denim.
In the event where conferences and workshops were held on restructuring of textile industry in the light of the environmental impacts and how to develop efficient global strategies, many national and international firms including Dupont, Egedeniz, Esquel Group, Lenzing, OrtaAnadolu, Patagonia, Eagean Clothing Industrialists’ Association, Topkapı, GAP Organik, Archroma, Bayer CropScience, DyStar and Ecotextile opened their stands.
In the opening speech of the event, Heidi McCloskey from TextileExchange, emphasized that organic textile market rapidly expands and continues expanding and textile industry should certainly make production by considering environmental factors.
“Cotton is the material being exposed to the highest amount of chemicals”
Alison Ward, CEO of CottonConnect, said that cotton is one of the agricultural products being exposed to the highest amount of chemical processes although it is known as a natural material in the explanation she made to Textile World Magazine.
Ward expressed that: “Although cotton is one of the raw materials receiving the highest amount of demand in today’s world, commercial cotton growing contains many environmental and health problems. Environmental researches show that use of intrinsic and extrinsic synthetic fertilizers, extra substances added into the soil, cutting trees to open space for fields and similar activities cause irreparable damage to soil, air and water.”
Ward summarized the importance of organic cotton production for our planet and future as such: “Chemicals and drugs used during cotton production correspond to 25 % of the use of insecticide and 10 % of the use of pesticide all over the world.”. She added as well that ecological cotton production will come to a significant position in the future.
“Cotton is the nicotine of the clothes”
Making a speech about global organic cotton production in the conference, Scott Ralston, Mediterranean Sales Director of Desso, made a special explanation to our magazine and said that the importance of ecological textile is being acknowledged day by day. Ralson added that: “As a general conviction, cotton clothes are always a step further as they are soft, take air and are regarded as the least harmful weaving material in comparison to other synthetic yarns. However, even cotton is not innocent and natural as much as we expect. Cotton can be described as the nicotine of the clothes. Insecticides used in the production of non-organic cotton contaminate soil and water and lead to the death of about 20 thousand cotton workers every year. It seems that cotton starts giving harm to environment and human beings without contacting the skin. Thus, many leading textile firms decided to head towards organic cotton.”
“There is an increasing demand for natural yarns in the textile sector in recent years. These include yarns produced out of bamboo cane, beech tree and even soy beans. However, this is another common concern as regards to whether all these developments are sufficient. Firms which are sensitive to nature and human health are not producing the entire collections out of organic fabric and even the design of some pieces of collections does not allow this. Unfortunately, some textile firms try to be seen environment-friendly but actually aims at increasing their sale figures through marketing. At this point, consumers should assume a great responsibility and launch a large scale initiative to ensure that the sector gains consciousness and permanent and full scale solutions are found.”
Solution rests on synthetic biology
Carole Collect, the Head of Department of Textile Researches of Saint Martin College, one of the leading universities of England, stated that the world population will reach 9.6 billion people by 2050 and the growing population will be accompanied by global climate change, energy crises and clean water supply etc. and to prevent such problems, we need a biological and organic revolution.
Stating that this revolution rests on synthetic biology, Collet added that: “With synthetic biology which intends to produce new organisms or modify the existing organisms, it is aimed at giving new biological functions to the plants to be grown with this system. This means that products which will not be affected by climate conditions, can yield more products and will not be contaminated by any plant disease will be grown.”
Organic product is not expensive
Koray Duman, sales marketing supervisor of Topkapı İplik which attended the conference by opening a stand stated that: “As Topkapı İplik, we keep our prices at affordable levels to eliminate the mentality of “Organic product is expensive”. As we carry out all the processes within our company, we can control all the costs and we plan to open stores selling organic textile products and extend all over Turkey in a relatively short time.”
Taking part in the event as speaker, John Easton, the Head of Ecology Solutions Department of Dystar, expressed that organic products should certainly get cheaper. Besides, he emphasized that the solutions that farmers dealing with organic agriculture can use instead of fertilizers and pesticides should also be diversified.
We support TextileExchange from the very beginning
Ebru Özaydın, Marketing Director of OrtaAnadolu, stated that they have been the sponsor of TextileExchange since 2002. Expressing that they have been supporting organic production for a long time now, Özaydın added that: “Organic agricultural products protect us and our ecosystem by preventing our exposure to synthetic insecticides which lead to such diseases as asthma and cancer in the long run and contaminate the soil, air, water and our food. She also expressed that they pioneered BCI, in Turkey, which was launched to ensure sustainability of cotton and in this respect, started using 5 % Better Cotton in all products manufactured in the plants found in Kayseri and Bahrain.
