Although many fashion labels and home textile manufacturers have stopped using fur, they still offer products that use animal down.
Lightweight, insulating and lofty: the properties of goose and duck down are unmatched when compared to petroleum-based synthetic materials. The down industry estimates that around 80 percent of the duvets and down offered by fashion and casual clothing brands are filled with animal down. Despite their higher cost, animal down jackets are stocked by almost all fashion and casual clothing stores. C&A, Zara and H&M offer them from around 60 euros, while in the premium and luxury sectors, for example Moncler or Louis Vuitton, they can cost several thousand euros.
Down of animal origin
“For more and more consumers, sustainability is becoming a key factor in their purchasing decisions. Because down is naturally sourced, as long as it’s responsibly sourced, it’s a good option to include alongside synthetic materials,” said Julian Lings, sustainability manager at outdoor clothing brand The North Face.
In 2014, after The North Face became aware of the risks of animal cruelty in the food chain from which the down comes, the company created the RDS seal together with the non-governmental organization Textile Exchange and a certification organization. The RDS seal guarantees, among other things, that the animals are not plucked or fattened alive.
Globally, less than 1 percent of poultry would be plucked alive. “In 2020, the RDS standard covered 636 million birds worldwide,” according to Textile Exchange. Downpass, another seal, certified over 5,700 tons of feathers and down in the same year. The world market, dominated by China, is estimated at 180,000 tons estimated for all uses Less than 1 percent of the world’s poultry farmed is still plucked alive in China and Eastern Europe, according to the independent laboratory IDFL.
Recycled alternatives
The recycled version of animal down is more environmentally friendly. Clothing manufacturer Uniqlo, for example, which is known for lightweight down jackets that can be worn under a coat, is trying to involve customers in the recycling process. Customers were asked to return items they no longer wore to the stores. The result: around 830,000 down jackets have been collected since 2019 and the down has been reused in new collections.
The Italian label Moncler has also started a recycling program for down. In January, Moncler, like many other brands, announced that it would no longer use fur, but not down.
But there are also amazing alternatives: H&M has made a down jacket with vegan filling that has been endorsed by animal rights organization Peta. The filling contains wild flowers, the jacket costs 249 euros. H&M also uses recycled down from pillows for some jackets.
The start-up TchaoMégot detoxifies cigarette butts to obtain insulating material for construction and clothing. The process works “without water and toxins”. It takes 4,500 cigarette butts to make one jacket. “Companies that collect their employees’ butts for us order down jackets from us to close the loop. We would like to operate on a larger scale, in line with our ethical values. However, we turned down bids from major textile companies who wanted them to ship fibers thousands of miles for manufacturing. When we recycle cigarette butts, it is not to release CO2 through their subsequent journey,” stresses Olympe Delaunay, who is responsible for communications at TchaoMégot.
Save the ducks
Whether it’s recycled or not, Italian brand Save the Duck, literally ‘save the ducks’, doesn’t use down. The brand aims to protect animals from the cruelty that the down industry brings. “In ten years we have sold 5 million down jackets, saving more than 20 million ducks,” says Nicola Bargi, President of the brand. In order to limit the environmental impact of the synthetic material, Save the Duck uses “increasingly more fillings made from recycled plastic”. (AFP)
This translated post previously appeared on FashionUnited.fr.