greenwashing

After seeing this piece on milk fabric designer Mr. Larkin on EcoStiletto and this observation about the eco-friendliness of using milk to make fabric on Seed & Sew, I really need to vent LOL!

How, exactly, is milk fiber eco-friendly? Seriously? Just being an “alternative” fabric, doesn’t automatically make it eco-friendly. As with bamboo, just making a fabric from something other than cotton doesn’t make it better for the environment – it depends on many other factors like how the original material is grown and the process used to break down the fibers and ultimately create the fabric. Bamboo is not always grown organically, and it is most often chemically processed – making it only marginally better than conventional cotton, a far cry from organic cotton. But I digress…we’re talking about milk.

How could milk fabric be considered eco-friendly?

• One company, Cyarn, that produces milk fabric uses an new “bio-engineering” process to manufacture the “protein spinning fluid suitable for a wet spinning process” and have been certified Oeko-Tex Standard 100 green certification, which apparently means that it is free of “chemicals which are known to be harmful to health.”
• Milk products/fabrics are considered more biodegradable
• It could use raw materials that would otherwise be discarded – not milk for human consumption – although there’s no significant evidence of that
• There are also claims that producing milk fiber doesn’t use as much energy or produce as much waste as conventional cotton

But…what is glaringly missing from all the considerations above are that on a large scale, the dairy/cattle industry is one of the most destructive industries to our environment. Besides contributing to greenhouse gases, cattle eat grains that could be used to feed humans, and dairy farming is an inefficient use of water. Companies that are producing milk fabric are only riding on the coattails of the dairy farming industry, they’re not big enough to influence it, but in using the materials produced by that industry, they are contributing to the continual degradation of the environment resulting from it.

On a personal note though, as a vegan, I choose not to consume dairy products, so I’m sure not going to wear them. I cannot sustain an industry that keeps milk cows pregnant constantly to get a consistent flow of milk and then takes away their calves within days; it is un-natural and exceptionally cruel. Besides that, milk from cows was meant to feed cows, not humans!!! I wouldn’t necessarily be averse to a dairy farm where cows were “naturally” milked and allowed to raise their calves, going on about a normal life, but that could be done only on a very small scale…and it would drive the cost of milk fabric up even higher than it is already (it is very expensive).

I’m not convinced. Milk fabric may be an alternative to conventional cotton, but THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT ECO-FRIENDLY. My opinion is that the environmental impact of the dairy industry and inhumane treatment of dairy cows completely negates any positive affect. I’ll stick to my organic cotton, thank you.

**I don’t mean to call-out Mr. Larkin specifically, other designers/companies are using milk fabric. Mr. Larkin is generally an eco-friendly designer, using organic cotton and producing locally. And her designs are PHENOMENAL. I do call out EcoStiletto though; this kind of feature without supporting information (why exactly $700 dresses made from milk are eco-friendly) contributes to greenwashing and overall ignorance about what eco-fashion REALLY is.

What do you think? Would you wear milk?

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