This article takes on an earlier article, written by Reg Nelemans, founder and owner of the company FashionPower.
Cotton has many lovers: inside, it becomes clear once again. It doesn’t seem advisable to counteract this. Why do you do it anyway?
In addition to wool, she was one of the first materials from which we made clothes – amals on a small scale and without any major problems. Unfortunately, we let ourselves be carried out for mass production: Every year, larger quantities of exhausted floors have to be obtained, while insects like the plant as well. This is a (too) hard struggle for cotton farmers. Whole families depend on the yield, which is determined by the market and has certainly not increased in recent years. So it is good to react to it and put everything in the right light.
And yes, you need a lot of water. Is it exactly 10,000 liters per kilo? It depends on what you measure. It starts with the cultivation of cotton, of course, but then follows a washing and coloring process that requires an enormous amount of water. The color plays a role in this: you sometimes have to color black three or four times and wash it as often. There is great consumption. 20 percent of all the polluted water in the world come from the clothing industry. These are figures from independent reports that are no surprise for insiders.
And you need medium. Is that one liter per kilo? Not only the pesticides, but also in the further process, chemicals are used: for washing, coloring and conditioning. All in all, this is certainly one kilo. So it is no longer a natural product as soon as it is processed into a piece of clothing.
After a few years of use, the soil is drained and has to recover. All of these chemicals demand their customs. Then calm is the only solution, hopefully in combination with sustainable soil improvement.
Does this have to answer the European Union?
Of course not! But it wants to reach a circular economy by 2050, with an intermediate step 2030, in which 50 percent form the basis. And this is urgently necessary, because we waste enormous amounts of raw materials and produce too much clothing every year that only sells at greatly reduced prices or is removed in containers in deserts in Chile or Africa. It stays there until it disintegrates and disappears into the ground. The big question is: when does that happen?
And is that all the fault of the cotton?
No, all clothing materials play a role here. Only cotton is still not circulatory and the big question is whether this succeeds in the long term. Opinions about it are strongly shared. Whether it happens mechanically or chemical, you always have to add another yarn to make the material firm enough – and then it is no longer circulatory. You can no longer go from fiber to fiber.
Polyester, on the other hand, is circulating! You can call it plastic, but you ignore the many generations of innovation that preceded this. Polyester is easy to manipulate: you can simply add something in the process and adjust the shape and processing. In the high sustainability ratings, polyester cuts best compared to cotton, viscose and want.
Our polyester variant with coffee grounds proves itself excellently in warm countries. Even for work clothes, it turned out to be very suitable because it absorbs and evaporates moisture. Cotton does not do that: a wet area remains a wet area. A large and renowned coffee brand carried out the test, we received the results.
Polyester and recycling
If you use recycled polyester, you no longer need oil and can continue to recycle without much loss of quality. Of course, PET bottles play a role in this, but great player: inside the food industry claims it for the future. This is not bad because there is more than enough clothes on the market that can be recycled. In addition, we are increasingly focusing on reuse of pre-consumer waste.
So is cotton bad?
No, but we have to concentrate on the goal we have agreed in Europe: a fully circular economy until 2050. That seems far away, but is closer than you think. We first have to find alternative materials and consumers: get used to new options inside. Because they know cotton, but new materials are not sufficient to make a conscious choice.
‘Coffee consumes more water than cotton’
FashionPower uses coffee grounds – the waste that arises when cooking coffee. It is usually thrown away, but now we use it to make clothes.
For clarity: we produce recycled, cozy polyester coffee gaps. That has many advantages:
- It is moisture absorbing and neutralizes smells of up to 95 percent.
- It offers UV protection and is breathable.
- It saves 60 to 90 percent water, reduces energy consumption, CO₂ emissions and color chemicals by 60 percent.
- And it is 100 percent circular.
A small company from Zundert, well thought out and well thought out. And we hope that we can still do it in 127 years, because we’ve been able to do so long in the clothing store. We made our decisions because it is necessary that steps are taken. There are not several options – this is our responsible choice.
Personal experience
My most important source? 45 years of experience in clothing production in Italy, Egypt, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Vietnam and China. I saw the drained cotton fields, the dyeing provisions in which people do not grow old, the production companies and their waste flows. In addition, I rely on reports Vonthe Microfibre Consortium, The Ellen Macarthur Foundation, K+V, Upv, Amfori and Higg as well as our own studies on SGS, Intertek, Ecolabel and Hohenstein.
I have worked almost exclusively with cotton in all of these countries for 25 years. But for the reasons mentioned, I stopped. We have to choose the future. And for that we need a sustainable and circulatory alternative. This requires a decision that has a better effect than anything ever existed.
The Dutch Chamber of Commerce recognized this and chose us the most circular company in the Netherlands in 2024 for 2025.
Reg Nelemans, founder/owner FashionPower