Sea-Grown Pants

Today, the fashion industry still relies heavily on fossil raw materials such as polyester, which is made from petroleum. This causes a serious environmental problem: production consumes enormous amounts of water, uses harmful chemicals and leads to high emissions. Researcher Karin Peters of Wageningen University therefore emphasises that the sector urgently needs to switch to more sustainable materials.

One of the promising alternatives is hemp. The crop requires only a fraction of the water that cotton consumes, yields much more fibre per hectare and grows without pesticides. What's more, hemp is completely biodegradable. The downside is that the fabric often feels a bit stiff, making it less suitable for soft clothing, although it works well for jeans or trousers. Bamboo is also often mentioned as a sustainable material: it grows quickly and can be cultivated on poor soil. However, it is not without its problems, as it usually requires aggressive chemicals to be processed into soft fibres. A more recent alternative comes from the sea: textiles made from algae or seaweed. This requires hardly any fresh water, making it considerably more environmentally friendly than cotton.

There are already companies experimenting with these types of materials, such as Dutch producers who make trousers from hemp, but they face strong competition from large clothing chains that use cheap synthetic textiles. Peters therefore emphasises that sustainability is not the only factor.

Consumers will have to buy fewer new clothes and wear their clothes for longer, otherwise surpluses will end up in incinerators.