Saturday, January 11, 2003
Mother Nature Approved
Eco-friendly fashion springs from hemp,
plastic, organics

Deborah Geering, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Cathy Day began her journey toward eco-friendly clothing with beads and a hippie band. A friend who was touring with the Grateful Dead introduced her to industrial hemp. "I didn't have a clue. I didn't know there was such a thing," said Day, owner of Earth Force, a shop on Marietta Square. "And I just happened to be interested in beads at the same time."

What she learned was that industrial hemp - a cousin to marijuana - used to flourish in this country as a fast-growing, low-maintenance cash crop because of the versatility and strength of its fibers. But political pressure from competing industries - as well as the presence of small amounts of the mood-altering chemical THC in its cells - led to the prohibition of hemp farms for much of the 20th century. Growing the plant is still banned under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

But buying and selling imported hemp materials is legal; the plant itself can be grown without pesticides or herbicides. Hemp twine is extremely strong, so Day started using it to string her beads. She first sold her creations in craft shows and then briefly from a vendor cart in North Point Mall. Nearly six years ago, she moved into a storefront on Mill Street in Marietta.

In addition to tie-dyed clothing and handmade dresses from India, her store carries men's and women's hemp clothing such as jeans, polo shirts and button-down shirts, many in the $40-$60 range.

"We're trying to get the word out about hemp," she said. "The thing is, once you wear hemp, you don't want to wear anything else. It's the most comfortable fabric - you feel like you're wearing your pajamas, its so soft and breathable - and it looks really good."

Hemp is not the only option out there for clothing shoppers with an eye toward the earth. Many retailers sell items made of organic cotton or recycled materials such as post-manufacturer cotton waste or even post-consumer plastic soda bottles.

The organic cotton movement is based primarily on one often-repeated statistic: One-quarter of all insecticides used globally are applied to cotton crops. Organic cotton products come from farms that eschew insecticides and other chemicals. Several dot-com retailers advertise clothing items made of organic cotton.

Outdoor outfitter Patagonia's Synchilla fleece uses recycled soda bottles as its base material. Since 1993, the company has diverted more than 40 million 2-liter plastic bottles from landfills and saved about 11,000 barrels of oil.

Other companies sell bottle-based clothing as well. Clothes Made From Scrap, a company in Florida, uses a fabric made of recycled soda bottles and reclaimed cotton - pre-consumer waste from cotton mills - in its sportswear. It also sells hats and totes made from 100 percent recycled plastic bottles.

Company clients include municipalities, government agencies and environmentally aware businesses, including Disney. Customers may order items at www.clothesmadefromscrap.com.

"The biggest problem we face with the eco-friendly product is the recycled product costs more than the nonrecycled product," said Graham Jarrett, the 10-year-old company's founder and president. "The general consumer, while he or she might say, 'We're really into the environment,' they might not be at the stage where they'll say, 'I'm always going to buy the recycled product.'... The people who maybe make a donation to the Sierra Club, they're the people obviously who are interested in the environment. What percentage of the population that is, I don't know," he said. "It's small."

One growing retail niche conserves a different kind of resource: land. Supporters of leather-free products prefer to wear plastics, even nonrecycled, over animal skins. While most leather opponents are motivated by anti-animal-cruelty campaigns, some also believe that the manufacture of petroleum-based manmade materials ultimately has less negative impact on the environment than do livestock "factory farms" and grazing areas.

For starters, reports People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the $1.5 billion U.S. leather industry tans approximately 100 million animal skins each year. Meanwhile, U.S. factory farms produce 130 times more waste than the entire American population, it says.

There's an even easier way to conserve, points out Bernie Brill, executive vice president of the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association: Buy used clothes. Although most of SMART's members deal in bulk donated clothing to be sold overseas, the concept works for individuals as well: Prolonging the "lifespan" of one outfit delays the need for a new one to be manufactured, thus conserving resources.

"That is the highest form of recycling" - recirculating a product as-is, Brill said.

Why it matters

• 46 percent of U.S. counties contain groundwater susceptible to contamination from agricultural pesticides and fertilizers.
• 14 million people in the United States routinely drink water contaminated with carcinogenic herbicides.
• It is legal to grow industrial hemp in more than 30 countries including Canada, Germany, England, France, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, the Russian Federation, China, Thailand, Hungary and Romania.
• Industrial hemp grows in climates ranging from temperate to tropical. It requires no pesticides or herbicides. A hemp crop is usually harvested in 100-120 days.
• 40 billion plastic bottles are produced each year in the United States. Two-thirds of them end up in landfills.

Sources: Susceptible Cotton Project, Hemp Industries Association, Hemp Pages and Patagonia

On the Web

Measure your own environmental impact: www.earthday.net/footprint/

Directory of clothing made from organic sources:
www.ecomall.com/biz/clothing.htm

Sources of recycled textiles

Clothes Made From Scrap: Plastic accounts for one-fifth of the United States' waste, and this company is trying to do something about that by selling shirts, hats and totes made of recycled soda bottles and reclaimed cotton (a by-product of cotton mills). 386-447-6656, www.clothesmadefromscrap.com.

Patagonia: Synchilla fleecewear Warm, soft fleece items from this company include vests (left), jackets and pullovers. Patagonia products are available on the Web and in outdoor supply stores such as REI; Buckhead shoppers can even check out a Patagonia store: 34 E. Andrews Drive N.W., 404-266-8182, www.patagonia.com.

Hemp and organic cotton Earth Force: This shop on Marietta Square sells hemp jeans, shorts, button-down shirts and polos, as well as other clothes and accessories. It occasionally carries clothes made of organic cotton as well. 31 Mill St., Suite 200, Marietta, 770-499-9067.

Maggie's Functional Organics: For more than a decade, this Michigan-based company has sold clothing made of organic cotton, wool, linen and pesticide-free hemp. The styles are simple and classic, ensuring that the fashion will last as long as the materials do. And the owners enter into cooperative agreements with the workers who manufacture the clothes. www.organicclothes.com.

Unleathers

Moo Shoes: Thirty-nine styles of women's shoes and 30 styles of men's shoes are available at this Web site for a store in New York City. Both the year-old store and the site are dedicated to the sale of leather-free shoes, jackets and accessories such as belts and bags. 212-481-5792, www.mooshoes.com.

Payless ShoeSource: It's really just trying to be inexpensive, but as an added bonus several of this chain's styles are leather-free. Leather and nonleather styles are mixed together in the stores, so look for a label on the box or the shoes themselves that says "all manmade materials." Find leather-free styles at the company's Web site by clicking on "shoe finder" and following the prompts until you¹re given the option of choosing manmade and other nonleather materials. Several metro locations, www.paylessshoesource.com.

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