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Raw materials
Today the awareness of the finiteness of fossil raw materials faces especially the energy industry with great challenges. It is urgently imperative for the energy industry to look for alternatives to fossil energy sources, because currently some 90 % of petroleum produced go directly – without preceding uses in other material life cycles ‑ into incineration processes (heating and mobility). Here, it is important to significantly enhance the possibilities for using the only external energy source of the 'system Earth' – namely the sun – without the 'detour' via petroleum or natural gas.
In context with the search for alternative raw materials, the call for renewable resources is getting louder. In the textile sector, too, voices can be heard that advocate an increasing cultivation of natural fibres for this reason. This demand shows that the connection between a stronger use of natural fibres and famines is no longer seen, unlike only 100 years ago. However, first signs that prove the lasting validity of this connection are rising global food prices – because agricultural areas are more and more put to different uses in order to produce raw materials for industry.
Now as in the past, man-made fibres ease the strain on agricultural areas and thus make contributions to sustainability without aggravating the food situation. Only 0.8 % of currently produced volumes of petroleum are needed for the global production of synthetic man-made fibres.
Cellulosic man-made fibres do not compete with food production, either. Only 0.2 % of amounts of wood felled globally are used for the manufacture of cellulosic man-made fibres. Furthermore, wood used for this purpose comes from sustainably managed plantations or marginal productivity areas that are unsuitable for food crops due to soil conditions, anyway.
Area
In a comparison of areas needed to produce 1 tonne of fibres, 67 ha are required for wool production against only 0.8 ha for viscose fibres – whilst no agricultural area at
all is needed for the production of synthetic fibres.
The sustainability of chemistry – compared with natural fibres – is highlighted even better when looking at the total area used globally for fibre production. 867 000 km2
of grasslands are currently used for wool production (69 % of total fibre production area) and 344 000 km2 (27 %) are used for cotton growing. By comparison, 44 000 km2 (3.5 %) are needed for viscose fibre production while only 400 km2 (0.03 %) are sufficient for the production of synthetic fibres.
Here, sizes of areas are inversely proportionate to yields: With a share of only 3.5 %
in the total area, man-made fibres cover 60 % of the global fibre production. By contrast, 27 % (cotton) of the total area account only for the 38 % share of cotton fibres, and 55 % (wool) of the total area contribute the share of merely 2 % of wool fibre in fibre production worldwide.
The worldwide fibre demand amounts to 68 million tonnes. If man-made fibres were abandoned with a changeover exclusively to wool production, 46 million km2 of grasslands would be needed for this purpose. This corresponds to one third of the entire land surface of the Earth, with globally available grasslands amounting to only 3.4 million km2. To enable a comparison: The total area of the Federal Republic of Germany is ca. 0.36 million km2; the total area of the Republic of Austria is 0.08 million km2. In theoretically necessary sheep farming, there would be four times as many sheep as humans. Those sheep would emit 160 million tonnes of the climate gas methane, corresponding to 3 700 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Global transport burdens the environment with 3.3 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
Producing exclusively cotton would not be ecologically viable, either. Currently 25 %
of fertile cultivation areas of good value and suitable for food production are used for cotton growing. If the entire worldwide fibre demand was to be covered with cotton, yields would have to increase by 300 %. Then 75 % of cultivation areas would be taken up by cotton, with only 25 % remaining for food production – resulting in global famines. In practice, such a dramatic increase in cotton areas would not even be possible, because cotton can be cultivated only in certain climatic conditions. Therefore, improved yields can be achieved only with artificial irrigation and high inputs of fertilisers and pesticides. Already now, some 10 % of globally used insecticides and one fifth of all pesticides are sprayed in conventional cotton cultivation.
Water consumption
Crop cultivation requires not only agricultural areas but also water. It is a well-known fact that water resources worldwide are limited and precious. For example, in cotton growing some 25 000 m3 litres of water are needed to produce 1 tonne of cotton fibres – which is doubtful in ecological terms. This is over 70 times the water quantity needed for viscose fibre production and over 6 000 times more than what is required in polyester fibre production. Thus man-made fibres make important contributions to preserving vital water resources.
Without man-made fibres there would be neither enough agricultural areas for food production nor sufficient water resources for humankind.