From a wasteful fashion industry emerges the Zero Waste movement.

It is said that the next great war will not be over oil, but water. So when it takes 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to produce a single pair of jeans, it is extraordinary that cloth has become a readily disposable commodity of little value. Indicative of this is the fact that on average 15 – 20% of cloth needed to produce a garment is wasted and the useless remnants are destined for the incinerator, landfill or occasionally as mattress filler.

In 2008 China, one of the world’s largest exporters of textiles and clothing produced 31.8 billion meters of fabric in January to July alone. You could reasonably estimate that almost 5 billion meters of that fabric was wasted. This astonishing wastefulness is caused by the entrenched traditions of the fashion industry, which separate the stages of garment design and production into hierarchies where the designers often work isolated from production. It is a system that fails to acknowledge that textiles are a finished product with energy invested into their design and manufacture and which seems primarily interested in the next new thing, forgetting also about what happens to garments at the end of their fashionable lives. So what’s being done about it?

Zero Waste cutting

Over the last couple of years I have had the privilege of working with Parsons Assistant Professor Timo Rissanen to bring together the work of 12 designers from all over the world in a zero waste fashion exhibition called Yield: Making Fashion Without Making Waste. All of these designers engage in some way with what has come to be known as Zero Waste Fashion Design (ZWFD). ZWFD involves designing clothing that in some way eliminates waste from the production or consumption of clothing.

This can be achieved in a number of ways and through various approaches; some designers use the left over fabric pieces to make other garments or products; others eliminate the creation of waste altogether when designing their patterns. Many designers use second hand clothing in order to remove waste from the post consumer end of the fashion consumption cycle, while others use innovative technology to make garments in completely new ways. All are in some way are addressing the huge volumes of textile waste contributed by the fashion and textile industry and consumers every year – a massive 30kg per person per year in UK and U.S.

Piles of second hand clothes for sale

Designing Out the Waste
Anybody who has cut out and sewn up a garment will be aware of the pieces between the pattern that are not incorporated into the finished garment. Many people save such offcuts for future projects, but there will typically be pieces that are either too small or oddly shaped to be of any use. These are routinely discarded, passing through the trash, en route to the landfill. In industry, markers are designed to eliminate as much of this wastage as possible in order to save money. However, the design of the garments is dictated by aesthetics and market alone, inevitably resulting in surplus pieces that cannot be used. The company can either creatively use this left over 15% to make different products, or by designing both the positive and negative spaces of the pattern it is possible to reduce this figure to zero. ZWFD aims to tick all the boxes of aesthetics, fit, market and zero waste.

The kimono as a historic example of Zero Waste cutting

These approaches, while sometimes appearing new, are in fact as old as clothing itself. For hundreds of years, aesthetics, and to a lesser extent functionality, have been the two pillars of fashion design, and when coupled with the slightly more contemporary desire for speed and change, has lead to the proliferation of too much fashion, too many collections, too often. Historically fashion was expensive because cloth was expensive and time consuming to produce. This meant it made sense to be careful about how you used the cloth you had and how you cared for the clothing you owned. Mending was common and using cloth frugally was standard practice – there are examples of “zero waste garments” from almost every continent and culture, and we’ve been practicing it for centuries.

Admittedly designing ZWF isn’t the easiest when first starting out. This type of design is not about numbers, it’s about experimentation, playfulness and taking a risk, all while being mindful of the impact of your actions. It slows the design of fashion down and forces many parts of the fashion chain to think about waste and material use from a design and production perspective. Many of the problems that exist in the fashion industry begin with ideas of separation, both geographical and hierarchical. Whether designer/producer, producer/consumer, consumption and disposal, the greater the distance and separation between the stakeholders in the fashion chain, the greater the likelihood of discordance and a lack of appreciation of what is really going on.

Holly McQuillan’s own Zero Waste Designs

Designing ZWF needs to be done with either a close relationship between designer and pattern cutter, or by a designer who is the pattern cutter, any other arrangement will be an exercise in futility. The change enables a close relationship between market, aesthetic and fabric yield to flourish, and from this, beautiful things are possible.

A designer attempting a zero waste garment design cannot simply ask, “have I used ALL of that piece of cloth?”

Doing only this would potentially result in garments that no one would want to purchase. So with ZWFD and indeed all sustainable design, aesthetics cannot be at the expense of the environment, just as the environment cannot be at the expense of aesthetics. There must exist a harmony between both.

Writer Holly McQuillan, is the Yield exhibit’s curator, and is also a designer and lecturer in the fashion design program at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts in Wellington, New Zealand.

Top image: McQuillan’s Yield Exhibit in Chicago

If these photos don’t make you wanna quit your job and travel the world, we don’t know what will.

Asia’s diversity never fails to astound. Nowhere on Earth can you find a greater variety of cultures, languages, races, ethnicities, religions, climates, and geography. It’s mind-numbing.

These photos provide just a taste of what Asia has to offer. They’re also an important reminder of the need to protect what makes the world’s largest continent unique. Though the scenes depicted here may seem worlds away, our choices always have an impact wherever we may roam, reminding us to tread lightly.

(above) Penang, Malaysia

Bangkok, Thailand

Great Wall, China

Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh

Hong Kong

Polomok, Philippines

Bali, Indonesia

Maldive Islands

Nha Trang, Vietnam

Lhasa, Tibet

Huashan Mountain, China

Udaipur, India

Cassava farm near Luang Prabang, Laos

Bali, Indonesia

Singapore

Koh Samui, Thailand

Tokyo, Japan

Tainan County, Taiwan

Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Seoul, South Korea

Abseron, Azerbaijan

Busan, South Korea

Kampong Thum, Cambodia

Shanghai, China

Himalaya Mountains, Uttarakhand, India

Binh Thuan, Vietnam

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Meizhou, China

Koh Samet, Thailand

Dornogovi Province, Mongolia, from the Trans-Siberian Railway

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Ratchaburi, Thailand

Yangon, Myanmar

Eastern Vasayas, Philippines

Makalu Base Camp, Nepal

Kyoto, Japan

Taj Mahal, Agra, India

Elephant orphanage between Colombo and Kandy, Sri Lanka

Angkor Wat, Cambodia 

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40 Gorgeous Photos of Europe

You could register at Bed, Bath & Beyond like everybody else, but that would be boring.

If you consider yourself more of a hobo bride than a Bridezilla, these registry ideas are dedicated to you. We’ve even included a china pattern and some crystal to appease your mother, and plenty of eco-selections to please the planet.

Night Owl China Pattern

From what we’ve been told, selecting china is a very big deal. As in, Charlotte York Goldenblatt would Pookipsy in her pants all over again if you and your betrothed screwed it up.

This upcycled white bone china plate by Jessica Lennox of Night Owl is eclectic, interesting, gold rimmed and hand-drawn. Her homewares shop gets its name, Night Owl, from the nocturnal hours she spends in her UK studio.

Boy Meets Hearts Poster

Every new household deserves eye candy worth hanging. That’s why we love Eric Telchin’s motifs, which are spontaneously and ingeneously crafted out of unaltered iPhone snapshots of hearts. Hundreds of heart-shaped objects make up each work; his first iPhone snapshot was inspired by a heart-shaped puddle of melted Ben and Jerry’s New York Super Fudge ice cream on his kitchen counter. Soon he was seeing hearts everywhere, in kitty litter and on dogs, just like you did in those heady early days of your courtship.

Now that you’re getting married, get your kicks where you can.

Heirloom bowl from Paloma’s Nest

The commemorative earthenware bowls and custom plates from Paloma’s Nest can make the most hardened singleton crave a husband and baby carriage. The “Milagro Heart” stamp bowl is no exception. “Milagro”, we should mention, means “miracle.”

They’ve been known to happen.

Hand Stamped Customized Spoons

Looking for something old? These vintage silverplate spoons from Trinkets818 have got you covered.

You’ll even have the tarnish and patina to prove that your love, like good silver, is everlasting.

Romanian Crystal

Romania is known for Transylvania, limber gymnasts and mouth blown, hand decorated, lead free crystal. The Dionysus Collection (named for the god of wine and “Inspirer of Ritual Madness and Ectasy”), displays a different type of wine on every glass.

May you imbibe and prosper.

Honeymoon Registry

Ask your married friends if the honeymoon period is all it’s cracked up to be. Instead of registering for traditional gifts, go paperless and shipment free with a personal event registry site like Deposit a Gift, Traveler’s Joy or Send Us Off.

Anything else is just stuff.

Images: Ariela Beal; Fernando Meyer

Shopping ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ isn’t really so patriotic…or is it?

When you look at clothing labels while out shopping, you likely see more Made in Sri Lanka, Made in India, Made in China, and Made in Guatemala than Made in the U.S.A. labels. It seems just about every country in the world produces clothing except America. How can this be? Americans like to buy clothing more than any other nation in the world, so wouldn’t it be suiting that we like to make it, as well?

Unfortunately, American factories have been closing down at a steady rate, with 90% of our garment factories’ production being outsourced since 1955. Skilled and unskilled labor jobs are disappearing at startling rates. And since the 2008 market crash, American fashion companies have been downsizing the staff even in their corporate offices.

“If we’re going to be competitive with the global market, we need to focus on innovation and coming up with new ways of developing and producing product while maintaining and passing down the traditional skills of sewing within this country,” says Erica Wolf, of Save the Garment Center.

While most American fashion companies still hold their design and operations offices here, much of our customer dollars go to the countries that make the clothes; paying their taxes, developing their nations, building their economies. We expect our politicians to solve America’s rising deficit, meanwhile when we go out shopping, we spend our money supporting just about every country but our own. There seems to be a disconnect here. Aren’t there still values and standards that we as Americans believe are worth saving? If you can’t find what you want with a “Made in the USA” label in it, is it wrong to buy it if it is made elsewhere?

There are those who would forgo such non-American purchases; they tend to be the patriotic individuals who post American pride all over everything they own. They proudly sport American-manufactured clothes and equate shopping with the survival and promotion of their values; keeping jobs in America, putting food on the table for their families, looking out for their neighbors, pride, and better-quality clothing.

For over a century, progressive Americans have worked to protect U.S. workers’ rights. Our nation set up some of the first and most effective labor unions, some of the strictest labor rights protection laws and environmental protection standards enacted in the world. These standards have improved over time, and help to prevent more tragedies from happening like the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. Americans fought for their rights, the government responded with appropriate laws, and all the while we never would have suspected our continual raising of the bar would over time lower the amount of jobs available to American workers.

Today, we have some of the most stringent factory standards on the planet. While the job of sewing operator is still no walk in the park, at least American technicians don’t have to work long hours without breaks or overtime pay. Modern day U.S. workers now at the end of the day get to go home to see their families, something that is unfathomable to the workers in the labor camps of China.

David Riley of americansworking.com has a theory that large companies have figured out how to operate business as usual regardless of the U.S. protection laws we enact: If they can’t do it here, they will do it somewhere else.

“We have outsourced all of our pollution and human suffering. America has made so many laws protecting the environment, the people, and our company trademarks here, that we can’t do business competitively in our own market. We are making American workers and our factories compete with those in countries who have none of the laws or standards that we must uphold,” says Riley. “We would never allow a factory in China to operate here. But we allow them to sell in our market, so in a sense we are allowing them to operate here anyway. We would never be able to compete.”

But amidst our fiercely competitive and, at times, cannibalistic business culture, our values continue to play a powerful role in the world of good. In 2006, American businesses and individuals were reported to have given more than 4.5 times what all of Europe, Australia, and Japan combined in private donations to charities and philanthropic causes that gave aid to developing nations. Granted, our donations are tax-deductible, but if we can afford to help others, why can’t we spring to support our own – at least with our shopping habits?

The majority of American fashion businesses default to China for production, claiming the cost of labor here is generally much more expensive than what American consumers are willing to pay for.

But according to Erica Wolf, of Save the Garment Center, this is not entirely true.

“With prices shifting, and China becoming more expensive it would benefit a big retailer to have their production department, at the very least, examine the prices at domestic factories. On certain garments the pricing is now comparable if not less domestically. And of course this additional business to local factories would help support American jobs,” she says.

Instead, businesses have learned to take advantage of the world market by outsourcing production to countries with cheap, exploitable labor to cut costs while keeping the prices of their goods low. The truth of the matter is that if a brand can’t dictate to us what we want through advertising, then they are forced to listen to what the consumers demand, and if we look for, request, and buy clothes that are Made in America, more companies will make clothes here.

However, for the average American consumer, fashion is frivolous, and has little to do with values or morals. It is less about the quality or where it is made and much more about the brand name on the label.

Riley says, “So much money goes into and comes from the marketing of high fashion brands; the image of high fashion is where they invest. The money spent there has to come out of something else, and I think that something is the cost of labor and product quality. They’re replacing the dollars for production and spending it on branding and marketing instead.”

With most American consumers so heavily influenced by the intoxicating spell of fashion advertising, most of our consumer drive comes from what we see in the media, rather than from the desire to choose items that represent our traditions or values.

Of course, there is one little company that challenged the standard formula and decided to go completely against the grain. In its 22 years of business, American Apparel has been surprisingly successful at building an American-produced fashion business using a vertical integration model that allows them to do nearly everything from design, to advertising, to production all, more or less, under one roof. Here is a brand that has taken great strides to give “American made” a new image.

If you can get past their ads, the company is all-American; proudly promoting their sweatshop-free, Union Made, U.S.A. produced, vertically integrated business, their charitable donations to natural disaster victims, and their political support of civil rights.

American Apparel isn’t the only contender willing to take on the global market while maintaining American production. There seems to be a new revival on the “Made in the U.S.A.”  fashion front. As Wolf notes, “There are designers doing production in the United States. For example, Nanette Lepore does 80% of her production in America.”

And quite recently, the American menswear company Brooks Brothers has made great efforts to bring it back home, complete with a luxe denim collaboration with American classic, Levi Strauss, and a heavily publicized marketing campaign to help equate “Made in America” with the luxury and quality that their brand stands for.

The Olsen Twins’ incredibly successful line, The Row, is yet another high fashion line that is primarily produced in the country. These brands have the marketing muscle and savvy and the will to bring the fashion-minded consumers once again back to getting behind American-made clothes, providing high end fashion that Americans can be proud of.

Image: Chevroletpedia, nycgo.com, America in the World, China Digital Times, Chicagomag.com, fashiongearlive.com

7 truths you need to know about China’s environmental notoriety.

As I’m writing this, I’m preparing for my return trip to Chongqing, China after a two-month vacation living at home with my parents in beautiful (albeit morbidly freezing) Fargo. While I’m reveling in the fact that I’ll be going to a place with weather over zero, I’m a little less psyched than last September when my boyfriend and I first left for China, with hearts full of hope and three suitcases full of dreams.

Hope and dreams aside, it’s principally the glamor of living in a foreign country that was crushed in the months that ensued after my arrival, during which I studied my brains out, Chinese style (I’m studying Mandarin – learning 30 completely different hieroglyphs daily and being tested on them the next), got to do my laundry by hand, and slept “comfortably” each night with my boyfriend on a lovely spring-loaded twin mattress.

The great thing about international travel is that you learn what you can truly live with (and without). In this case, I learned I can live with all of the aforementioned, plus long layovers, 14-hour flights, ten-times-crazier-than-New-York cab drivers, and much much more. In retrospect, I can even laugh about most things.

But this is what I can’t laugh about: pollution boogers.

I’m sorry, dear reader, but the thing I am dreading above and beyond all else, is waking up with my nose plugged full of black, coal-sooty, shall we say, “organic matter”.

You may have heard all about China’s pollution problems. You may know that China is the biggest net CO2 emitter, having overtaken the U.S. in 2007. You may have even heard that 16 of the world’s 20 most disgustingly grimy, unlivable, unbreathable cities in the world are in China. But nothing compares to actually waking up to the lovely smell of pollution.

Here are seven things you need to know about China’s environmental problems, from an un-seasoned, non-scientist, pollution-breather. For these purposes, forgive me if I wax a little more serious, but let’s be honest: this is serious stuff.

1.  The human cost of China’s pollution woes is concretely and directly related to astronomical cancer rates and unforgivably low quality of life in many areas.

Take a look at China’s infamous “cancer villages,” villages and towns in China where the entire population has experienced the effect of pollution-linked cancer either personally or inter-personally. These horrifying areas of China reflect the degree to which pollution has directly harmed not just the land and the air, but the people as well. Cancer is China’s #1 cause of death. Only one percent of China‘s 560 million urban dwellers breathe air that the European Union’s standards would consider breathable. While Cancer Villages are poor examples of the whole, they are microcosms of the thousands if not tens of thousands of towns and cities where China’s coal reliance, unclean industry and waste practices have left their mark by a layer of soot and grime that most Chinese treat as a standard feature of the urban landscape.

2. When individuals speak up about this human cost, especially if they tackle environmental problems as a human rights issue, they put themselves at great risk.

One risk is being targeted by rich factory owners and industrial moguls whose wealth is a powerful tool for bribery and an incentive to all around thuggery. The other, more remote but very crushing risk is being deemed subversive and inimical to state stability and becoming a political prisoner for it. It’s downright sad that the greed and corruption underpinning the risk of pissing off the powerful, undermines and reduces environmental advocacy and results in little to no change. It’s even sadder that beneath the risk of becoming a political prisoner there’s a fundamental irony: stifling the voices of people who don’t want heavy metals in their children’s food or have no desire to see their neighbors drop dead from pollution-caused cancer could, even more than letting people advocate for human and environmental rights, become a truer risk of social breakdown.

3. Most of the worst pollution is concentrated in comparatively poorer Northern and inland areas.

Collectively, these areas are the engine that is moving total economic progress forward. They are where coal (China’s life support) is mined, heavy metals are extracted, heavy industry is booming, and domestic goods are produced. They are also the nexus of growing inland-coastal inequality that correlates to urban-rural and poor-rich disparities. Heavily polluting industry is kept away from the wealth and health of coastal poster cities like Shenzhen, not to mention from the newly rich who live there and the tourists who come to see the glossy side of China. There are no aforementioned “cancer villages” on the Southern coast.

4.  The U.S. and China are both part of an import-export machine that drives the global economy, but goods aren’t the only thing we trade.

While the U.S. exports more and more black money-making chunks of carbon to fuel China’s coal dependence, China exports its fair share: acid rain and particulates. If you take a look at this graph, you can see that coal exports from the United States into China sky-rocketed from 386,950 tons in 2009 to 4,071,837 tons in 2010. That’s more than 10 times in one year, proof that pushing to green public policy is not enough- we need to be global. That’s not all, if you’re reading this in Los Angeles, you’re breathing multinational pollution, and some of it is from China. As the New York Times put it, “China’s problem has become the world’s problem. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides spewed by China’s coal-fired power plants fall as acid rain on Seoul, South Korea, and Tokyo. Much of the particulate pollution over Los Angeles originates in China, according to the Journal of Geophysical Research.” 

5. The central government actually has some comparatively brawny environmental regulations, hefty fines for non-compliance, and significant investments in green technology, and to a degree, it’s helped. But it’s not the whole story.

While a degree of mistrust is certainly appropriate, for the most part media reports about China’s greening efforts are reporting the truth. In 2009, China’s state council ambitiously stated that it plans on reducing its carbon intensity by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 (from 2005 levels). Its newly released 12th, five-year plan  (China’s centrally-designed map toward continued progress in 2011 to 2015), clearly indicates a continuing commitment to reducing its environmental issues, including big investments in green energy aimed at kicking its carbon habit and expanding what’s now in place. For example, China has not only overtaken the U.S. in carbon emissions, but according to the Guardian, it has also left the U.S. in the dust with its wind-power generating capacity. 

Here’s the part where we tend to fall prey to China’s image machine: While the central government is by all appearances trying, it isn’t trying that hard. The problem is that centrally designed incentives for local governments are structured around the economy not the environment. Social (re: economic) stability (re: growth) trumps environmental concerns. If a regulation will harm the local economy–say the expense of alienating factory owners by forcing them to put caps on a factory’s smokestacks, a local official just won’t follow it. And the central government, big investments aside, just isn’t willing to change its incentives.

6. Most Chinese feel for the environment and recognize that its destruction is a bad thing, but hope for continuing economic ascension trumps the fear of environmental decline.

Just as in the United States, when it comes to daily decision-making, whether it be by average, everyday people or by high level local officials and factory owners, “the bottom line” is what most people think about. And the bottom line in China is this: Now is the time to get rich (er, “moderately prosperous“) or die trying.  While the die trying part will likely come from destroying the environment, the reward is success in a society that desperately wants to prove its global clout after a century and a half of humiliation by Western powers. 

It’s also important to know that there’s just not the same level of “green” awareness in China as there is in the West and Japan right now. For example, in Chongqing there is a series of slogans run by the charismatic and well-connected mayor called “the Five Chongqings,” which are five visions of Chongqing’s future that are meant to guide its development into a global metropolitan city. One of them is translated into English as “Green Chongqing,” that is, a Chongqing with more trees. More trees is good, but the goal is not necessarily undertaken from an environmental standpoint. In this case, the vision is aesthetic. More trees means a prettier city that more people will want to visit, which means more tourism, and more inflow of capital.

While an expanded notion of “green” and an expanded sense of responsibility toward the environment would be great, most Chinese don’t see themselves as having the luxury to place that above its long economic project that has to date raised millions and millions of people out of abject poverty. And as far as they’re concerned, that project is nowhere near complete.

7.   We are implicated, and in a more complicated way than you may think. It goes without saying that China’s industry produces our products and supports our consumption. There’s no denying it. Just go to Wal-Mart and check every plastic thing you can find. But while we cannot escape this fact, self-flagellation isn’t quite the right response either. Our imports from China have been the linchpin in China’s export machine, the very mechanism that has supported the incredible feat that some call China’s miracle; its aforementioned poverty-elimination project. 500 million Chinese escaped poverty between 1981 and 2004, and in just the 3 years after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, poverty was cut by another 3rd. Our consumption, while we often lament its destructive facets, is a huge part of China’s ability to make that happen.

Let me put it in real terms: Tomorrow I may wake up with black boogers, but in a few months I’ll go home to my country, go to Target, and buy a Chinese-made plastic storage bin so I can organize all of the crap I bought while I was in Chongqing. And while I’m fueling the environmental cause of the current source of my sticky goober dread, I’ll be contributing to a global supply chain that is exploitative, harmful, and has performed the previously unimagined feat of building for my Chinese friends a system in which they can support themselves economically without the need of a communist leadership to give them an “iron rice bowl.” Oh, the ambivalence.

Images: Justin D, Lance Webel, Robertg6n1, blacksmithinstitute, malouenfrankinchina, J_Ensley

Feral Childe, a bi-coastal collaboration of Oakland, CA, based designer Alice Wu and Brooklynite Moriah Carlson, has sped to the forefront of sustainable design labels, most notably for their refreshing prints and inventive styling details. The brand’s following is comprised of all ages of women who want something unique for their closet and know these two designers will never let them down.

The duo is fortunate enough to be able to manufacture in New York City where Carlson is based – so why would they ever want to produce their line in China? Is the backlash so bad against the entire country that now it’s all Chinese we sneer at? Wu, of Chinese descent, and I recently had a conversation about whether it was insulting, all the negative connotations from the entire sustainable community regarding China.

Offshore manufacturing? That’s just something designers have to do. Many are doing it in China. The best way to look at all this and your feelings on China is to support the handful of designers who are manufacturing from China, the right way.

Alice Wu and Moriah Carlson, designers of Feral Childe

Here’s what Alice Wu had to say about it:

“Our company, Feral Childe, is proud to be able to manufacture our garments in New York City, and hope to do so for as long as we can. I prefer to manufacture in the US but am frequently dismayed that ‘Made in China’ has such negative connotations, especially within the green community. I think that before you dismiss manufacturing in China as completely unethical, you have to look at what ‘Made in China’ really means.

We have all read about worker abuse and fraudulent manufacturing practices, horrific pollution and so on. But these days, it’s almost impossible to have an apparel business without China being involved in some way, simply because we don’t have all of these options domestically. These overseas options can still be eco: many organic and sustainable fabrics are sourced from China, whether from the raw materials or to the milling of the fabric.

Hang tags and labels are often outsourced to China even if you order them from a US-based company. But those can be green too: at least one Chinese company uses non-toxic inks to print hang tags on recycled paper and garment labels made from recycled polyester. I know American eco-designers who have made the choice to produce in China. And they are in China up to six months out of the year, overseeing their production. They tell me that the working conditions are fair and that the sewing is quality top-notch.

Obviously, there are reputable suppliers and manufacturers in China – if we want to do business with China, we are the ones who have to do our homework and steer clear of the bad apples (and there are no doubt a bunch of them) and push China for greener business practices. China is fast and smart and it is in their best interest to clean up their negative image, and they are already working on it. I think we’ll start hearing an explosion of green innovations in China within the next few years. They know the world is watching. It’s going to take awhile for the negative image to go away, but there are a growing number of young Chinese entrepreneurs in various business sectors who care about green, and collectively they can make a difference at home and abroad.”

Guess what? Jeans aren’t really green. The most sustainable pair you’ll slip on are the blue jeans that feel like cardboard boxes on your legs or the pair you find at the thrift shop; otherwise it’s a crapshoot as to how they get distressed like you want them to be.

Sustainable? To a degree, depending on what the company wants to tout as “eco,” with initiatives ranging from the use of natural reactants vs. toxic indigo baths to planting trees or giving back to countries that have suffered at the hands of the denim industry.

On that note, we turn our eyes to images like these released recently from Greenpeace on Ecotextile News. The site claims that “Two Chinese textile factory towns in Guangdong province, that together make millions of pairs of jeans and underwear, are now heavily polluted with chemicals released from textile production.”

Situated on a tributary of the Pearl River Delta, Xintang is a huge denim producer. Its jeans and apparel business began in the eighties, but thanks to our unquenchable thirst to look like rugged Americans, the last thirty years has enabled an entire economy to become completely dependent on the denim production chain in Xintang. According to Greenpeace, the town produces over 260 million pairs of jeans a year, equivalent to 60 percent of China’s total jeans production, and 40 percent of the jeans sold in the USA.

This is a satellite image of what Greenpeace caught flowing out of Xintang.

Denim pollution flows from Xintang into the Dong River, then on to the Pearl Delta

Apparently, in Xintang, the “jeans capital of the world” and Gurao, heavy metals in 17 of the 21 soil and water samples tested, indicated extensive heavy metal contamination throughout both cities, says EcoTextile News.

Greenpeace even cited that “In one sample, cadmium exceeded China’s national limits by 128 times.” 128 times?! Come on!

Will China get wise to stricter monitoring of discharged chemicals in their water and soil? Do they even care?

Greenpeace hopes so (as do we) and has called on not only the Chinese textile industry and government to shape up but for society as a whole to take a closer look at what fast fashion is doing to China’s environment and beyond, to you.

Desperate times in Asia call for desperate green measures to achieve clean air (pollution is proving a major killer), pure water (so long, mountain glaciers) and enough food to meet the crushing demand.

Witness frantic and frenetic China where a massive industrial build up has come at the expense of the environment and human health. They knew they were forgetting something during that crazed development of resources. But now, with predictions of energy consumption doubling by 2030, something has to give.

Spurring immediate change was the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Literally offering a breath of fresh air, the government played catch-up, erecting buildings using strict green guidelines, shutting down polluting factories and restricting traffic. This pop-up example of  sustainable community development triggered action by eco activists to maintain the blue skies and cleaner air. Money is the strongest talking point.

Games or no games, Asia can now see a dramatic cost cutting incentive to lowering the impact of development, and change is coming at a faster pace. For this reason, progress is a mixed bag as environmentalists there work to pressure those most responsible for poisoning the air for personal gain.

Playing Catch Up on Improved Shipping Methods

A whopping 80 percent of global trade is done on the sea. Improved methods are crucial to improving air quality since seaborne trade is expected to double by 2025. Carbon emissions from shipping amounts to four percent of all emissions, globally, and the U.S and Europe have and pushed for more responsible methods, introducing green initiatives such as more efficient operating systems and reworking ship design for more effective trafficking.

News Asia reports that adoption for green initiatives by shipping companies has been slow in Singapore and Southeast Asia despite the fact implementing measures can save some 30 percent on fuel and energy costs. Plus, those who have invested in measures such as scrubber systems to remove pollutant particles have reported a one to three year return on that investment. While all of this is convincing, what might allow Asia to catch up is the threat its ships won’t be able to enter international waters without adhering to tighter regulations.

China Advancing Cleaner Energy out of Necessity

China is now reportedly ready to let wind energy soar as it makes a commitment to a renewable energy revolution. According to the Telegraph, that commitment is most apparent in Beijing, where edicts are being issued weekly including a pledge to generate 100 gigawatts of power from wind by 2020, tripling the original target of the national energy strategy.

In describing the new wind farms in western China, the Telegraph found they have even emerged as a tourist attraction where fascinated couples pose in front of the giant white propellers for photos. “Today, the same winds that struck fear into traders of the Silk Road, swallowing whole caravans in blinding storms of dust, are being used to power plans for a new, green revolution for China’s energy-hungry economy,” wrote the Telegraph.

Meanwhile in the city, the government has installed solar panels to power street lights in Beijing as well as solar water heaters in some of the remaining houses. In fact, the Telegraph tells us China will now spend more than six times America’s green stimulus spending to reduce emissions and create alternative energy by revamping nuclear, solar and hydroelectricity.

In terms of working together, a consortium of U.S and Chinese companies are investing $1.5 billion in a 600-megawatt wind farm in West Texas using turbines made in China. The power should meet the electricity demands of between 135,000 and 180,000 U.S. homes for a year. Chinese banks have largely paid for the farm with loan guarantees and cash grants from the U.S. government.

Japan Joins Call for Reduced Emissions

As the Japanese people also grow more environmentally aware (they were even in the dark about the dolphin slaughter) the government has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent compared to 1990 levels, while upping environmental-related employment. Subsidies also are being flaunted for home solar electric generators and friendly appliances and hybrid vehicles.

In 2010, a new incentive initiative was created for the purchase of eco-friendly houses, and in 2011, the government will expand the Feed-in-Tariff range and set an emissions rights market. Other incentives encourage research and development. Investment Week suggests Japan’s primary focus is energy-saving technology. It is considered the most energy-efficient country in Asia. China’s share of greenhouse emissions is 19 percent – five times larger than Japan’s – and the country is expected to widen its ecology and tech markets for solar and hybrid cars, nuclear energy, water conservation and purification and waste disposal. Other growth areas include LED lighting, fuel batteries, smart grids, carbon dioxide capture and storage.

Forging  Green Dwellings for Emerging Middle Class

Asia is also advancing in the uphill battle of energy-efficient housing, taking its lead from the West. Japan might be slightly ahead of the yuppie housing game but all that newly acquired income from making all of our stuff has seen a rapidly emerging middle-class in China. That populace now seeks the same green standards for cleaner materials, energy and water efficiency in residential dwellings as the educated and informed in Europe and the U.S.

China Daily tells us a number of real estate developers are answering that call by adopting green industry systems for residential buildings. Shenzhen Fountain Corporation, for example, is slated to develop LEED-registered residential buildings in Zhuhai in Guangdong province and Changsha in Hunan province. Apparently, this will bring world-class environmental standards to China.

Officials see they can save 20 to 60 percent on energy consumption, and better yet, LEED-certified buildings, though more costly to build, see good returns on investments in the long run. Developers see it can give them a competitive edge while meeting increasing demand.

Hybrid Rice to Replace Disappearing Fields

Hybrid seed growers want the government in the Philippines to act now and urge local farmers to adopt the use of hybrid rice technology which has proven effective in doubling or tripling their farm yield as high as 17 tons per hectares. This is comparison to the output of four to five tons per hectare for certified inbred seeds.

Expanding land and using old technology is no longer a viable option. Still, the Aquino administration has said it would continue using inbred seeds. Advocates of a hybrid rice program argue without it, China would not have busted out to become the second-largest world economy able to feed more than 1.3 billion people.

China embraced the technology in the 1960s when a famine threatened starvation, and has since led the world in the research of hybrid rice and development. In describing the technology, Commodity explains that in conventional rice plants, inbreeding take place since each flower has both male and female organs, allowing the plant to self-pollinate  to produce. But Hybrid rice seeds come from two genetically distinct parents requiring three breeding lines (male-sterile line, the maintainer line, and the restorer line).

Complicated, no? China’s ability to master it has given the country an edge in not only feeding its own population, but providing ways to cultivate sticky rice in other parts of Asia where it is popular. Farmers must buy new hybrid seeds every season and China is now developing super hybrids from parent lines that are genetically more distinct than typical hybrids and contain a greater degree of heterosis, and therefore, higher yields.

Images: Ivan Walsh; Kiwi Mikex; Dmytrok; FHKE; Muji; Bionicfarmer

Recently, a colleague sent me a link with the words “what, soy sauce causes cancer now?” emblazoned across the email. I could sense her frustration through the keyboard. What next, the very air we breathe causes cancer? (Actually, in my city, it does.) Sometimes it seems like we have to give up everything for the gods of health: trans fats, antiperspirants, and/or mascara that doesn’t run. When is the time to say – enough, I want my high fructose corn syrup-sugared cake and I want to eat it too?

Well, that day is not today. (Nor is it any day for a person who doesn’t want to live in Ignorance is Bliss Land. This exists right next to magical Cake Town and Pie Ville. Sighs all around.) Because, yes, some soy sauce could cause cancer. Soy sauce contains an organic chemical compound called 3-MCPD. It occurs when hydrochloric acid is used to speed up the reaction of the soy protein, a cheaper method used by some manufacturers. According to sources, this compound “is carcinogenic and highly suspected to be genotoxic in humans, has male anti-fertility effects, and is a chemical byproduct which may be formed in foods.”

The compound has been found at high levels in many causes in East and Southeast Asia. But recent information also links it to sauces found all over the world. As the Canadian Cancer Society reports, “3-MCPD is a substance that has been found to be present in a number of soy, mushroom and oyster sauces in Canada and the United Kingdom. The levels vary from product to product ranging from very low levels to relatively high ones.”

The British Food Standards Agency (FSA) has sorted out “brands and products imported from Thailand, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Brands named in the British warning include Golden Mountain, King Imperial, Pearl River Bridge, Jammy Chai, Lee Kum Kee (李錦記), Golden Mark, Kimlan (金蘭), Golden Swan, Sinsin, Tung Chun and Wanjasham soy sauce.”

So do we start a soy tea party and start dumping our soy sauce into the streets? Not just yet. The FSA stresses that some soy brands were found to be 3-MCPD free and that these non-toxic brands all came from major food chains.

So for now, just be aware of who made your soy sauce. And in the meantime? Prepare yourself for the next delicious food which will be declared unhealthy. I’m standing guard over cupcakes. They’re very healthy. I know it. (Hands plugging ears.)

Images: avlxyz

Is Edun getting tired from all the work that is involved in being sustainable?

With the recent heralding from the green trenches and even the Wall Street Journal, which exposed the celebrity-based line for going “Out of Africa, Into Asia,” we all have to sit back and scratch our chins.

After all, if you have money and a front man like U2′s Bono backing you up, you should be able to do more than just what everyone else is doing. Translated? When the indie designers in Seattle are struggling to make ends meet, and are making their lines more sustainable than yours, there’s a big problem. I mean, they don’t have the luxury of having Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) buy 49 percent of the shares in their company, they work craft fairs.

So during the recent NYFW, when fresh faced Edun designer Sharon Wauchob unveiled her vision for the label (which was stunning), and we all discovered that roughly 70 percent of the line is now made in China, it was a real slap in the face to what the brand initiated and inspired us to believe: That empowering other countries, like those in Africa, through job creation could, as Goodlifer points out, be an “important tool for societal transformation, something that is urgently needed in the world of conscious fashion.”

Edun’s new chief executive, Janice Sullivan (former president of Liz Claiborne Inc.’s DKNY Jeans division and who later ran Narcisco Rodriguez), says in a recent Wall Street Journal article about taking on Edun, “The whole celebrity piece wasn’t the draw for me. I am all about the product.”

Gulp.

Everybody’s got to make a buck, but when you brand yourself as more than that and involve community from the get go, shouldn’t you be more than that?

Image: Ali Hewson and Bono wearing Edun for a recent Louis Vuitton ad