What a month it has been! Feels like a rollercoaster of bad news in terms of ethical manufacturing. But when bad practices bubble to the surface there are people in the background working to make positive changes. Maybe this is the start of social and environmentally sustainable production. We are ever hopeful!

Firstly, we have found a new podcast that’s worth a listen; Loose Threads (which is available on all good podcast providers and also through the website www.manufacturedpodcast.com) they talk to garment producers from around the world to dispel some of the myths. The one released this week talks about why factories subcontract, and it’s an essential listen for anyone who works in production.

Starting with the news that has shocked me the most this week; the Better Cotton Initiative has been found to use forced labour in some of its farms in Xinjiang. While little response has been given at the time of writing this, they did say that mitigating risks within the supply chain was not what they were designed to do. Much to the surprise of every single one of their customers I should imagine. Full article on this can be found at www.apparelinsider.com.

BCI have said there are significant challenges around pivoting it’s operations, perhaps it’s time for the BCI to wind up shop, and instead concentrate on supporting smaller initiatives around the world with regenerative cotton farming. While organic cotton is infinitely better than standard cotton (although only when not using forced labour), it is still taking from the Earth rather than giving to it.

Following in the same vein as the BCI story, the mainstream press has picked up on a Mango supplier firing a number of its workforce for demanding clean drinking water. To bring a bit of context to this story, this happened back in June and in the last 2 years the same supplier has fired staff for joining unions, demanding overtime be paid and becoming pregnant. Luckily a large number of grassroots organisations are picking this up and shouting loudly, this particular story has be championed by the Clean Clothes Campaign East Asia (www.cleanclothes-ea.org) who are working very hard to bring the working conditions of those who make our clothes to the forefront of the conversation.

To bring a bit of good news to the bleakness mentioned so far, Infinite Fibres and Renew:cell are moving to the next stage of testing large scale manufacturing for their chemical recycling initiative in conjunction with H&M and a number of viscose suppliers. So far they have managed to extract elastane out of the yarns (because you can’t do anything with elastane unfortunately) before using the left over, waste chemicals from viscose production to turn it into a liquid which can then be made into a fibre. Trials so far have been successful on cotton and poly/cotton blends, although the more times a fibre a recycled the more virgin fibre is needed to be added to ensure yarn stability. While it’s not ready for complete synthetic recycling as yet, this is huge progress.

To finish us off, if you have 6 minutes to spare I recommend checking out the video from Mosevic Eyewear, based in Cornwall they make sunglasses out of old jeans and the process is just amazing. Upcycling at its best!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1suJEz90SXU

In The Green Room for October.

Being a Sustainable Consumer.

Who really knows how to source something anyway?