German
English"Eco" or not
The growing trend toward and the rising demand for environmentally friendly textiles, manufactured in socially acceptable conditions, leads to a proliferation of eco-labels and eco-collections. However, so far designations such as “natural”, “bio” or “eco” are not protected in respect of clothing. The sweeping judgement “nature is better than chemistry” is unjustified, because the overall eco-balance of man-made fibres is more favourable than that of cotton. Besides energy and resource consumption, also factors such as machine deployment, fertilisers, and finishing and transport costs must be taken into account.