Why a cotton ban doesn’t make sense for the EU

The New Year is just a few days old and an interesting debate has already broken out – a supposed cotton ban that the EU wants to enforce by 2030. You might think that April 1st fell on January 1st this year, because of course an EU-wide cotton ban is neither feasible nor advisable. “There is no EU legislation that bans cotton, and there are no plans to ban cotton in the future,” writes a media spokeswoman for the EU Commission, according to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

What there is is the EU Ecodesign Regulation, which is part of the Sustainable Products Initiative (SPI), which was adopted as part of the European Green Deals. She also deals with the recycled content that textiles will have to contain in the future; however, no concrete information is expected before the end of 2026. This also includes the recycled content that cotton will have to have in the future, but which has not yet been determined.

Recycled content

The argument put forward in some articles that only a recycled content of 20 percent is currently possible for cotton is outdated: The Swiss company Säntis Textiles, based in Singapore, recycles cotton using its mechanical and fiber-friendly recycling technology RCO100 and is the first company in the world to produce high-quality cotton and 100 percent recycled cotton. These are long staple fibers or GRS-certified yarns (Ne 30/1).

Water consumption

Other myths surrounding the raw material cotton include water consumption. “Misconceptions about cotton water use persist persistently on both traditional and social media platforms, despite concerted efforts to correct this misinformation with scientific evidence. Water is an important and renewable resource, and cotton producers strive to use it responsibly,” explains Jesse Daystar, head of sustainability at communications agency Cotton Inc.

“Most U.S. cotton is produced using only natural rainfall. With just an inch of rain, modern cotton varieties can typically produce at least 50 pounds of lint and 75 pounds of seed – enough to make more than 170 T-shirts and feed more than 10 cows,” Daystar continued, citing figures from the US Department of Agriculture.

Carbon footprint

In addition, cotton is a carbon sink that, according to Keshav Kranthi, scientist from the International Cotton Advisory Council (ICAC), releases about 1.6 tons of CO2 per hectare on an annual global average, but 11.21 tons per hectare through the different parts of the plant (fibers, seeds, stems and roots) from the atmosphere.

If you look at the many unique properties of cotton, such as its skin-friendliness and low allergy potential as a natural fiber, its resistance, absorbency and breathability, and the fact that it is a renewable raw material, then you can see that a cotton ban would make no sense.

“No reason to give up this fiber”

“Cotton has an important component in this fiber mix that we can consume. It has a lot of advantages and is much closer to the circular economy than polyester. And in terms of environmental conditions, if we learn to dye properly and behave in a more environmentally friendly way in terms of the chemistry we use, then it is a product that is likely to be more easily integrated into the circular economy,” says Dr. Stephan Weidner-Bohnenberger, expert in fibers and fabrics and head of the scientific advisory board of the German Institute for Textile and Fiber Research (DITF-MR), spoke to FashionUnited about concerns.

“I see no reason to avoid this fiber,” adds Weidner-Bohnenberger. “We just have to reduce consumption instead of following the old motto that ‘we can only do well with growth’. This is outdated and there needs to be a rethink.”

A ban on certain fibers generally makes little sense for fiber and fabric experts. “It’s about doing better what I did wrong at the beginning. I have to tame the fibers at the beginning; they have an influence on the final product. And if I now introduce other fibers, the end product must also be able to cope with that. And if I, as the producer of the end product, learn where my challenges lie and how to eliminate problems and find the causes, then it will become more rounded,” concludes Weidner-Bohnenberger.