Why Lagoped does not use organic cotton

For several years, the trends in the fashion industry have been towards more environmentally friendly materials, and this is very good news. Eco-responsible fashion and/or the outdoor sector have thus seen the emergence of organic cotton, recognized as having a better environmental impact than cotton. At Lagoped, our commitment to sustainability and circularity is even more important and goes beyond these trends since we have chosen an alternative path by rejecting organic cotton in favor of recycled cotton, more aligned with our ecological and ethical values .

We take stock of our choice of materials to help you understand the environmental and ethical challenges of organic cotton and discover eco-responsible alternatives.

In the fashion industry, cotton is an omnipresent material due to its excellent textile properties. It is obtained from a natural plant fiber derived from the down that surrounds the seeds of the cotton plant , grown in many parts of the world. A natural resource available that has made the clothing industry happy.

Why is cotton so widely used in textile manufacturing? The first reason is undoubtedly its comfort and breathability. Cotton offers a soft touch and allows air to circulate between its fibers, thus providing comfort in hot weather. Cotton fiber is used for all types of clothing: from t-shirts to underwear. In addition, cotton offers good absorption of moisture from the skin and helps keep the skin dry.

On the garment manufacturing side, cotton fiber can be used alone or mixed with other fibers to increase the qualities of the fabric , and it lends itself easily to dyeing and printing. In general, it is robust and offers a longer life to the garment. A last advantage, and not the least, is the ease of maintenance of cotton fiber: it does not require special care.

But as you might expect, conventional cotton fiber cultivation has significant negative impacts on the environment. That's why organic cotton and other alternatives are gaining popularity.

Organic cotton is grown using organic farming methods, i.e. without the use of pesticides, herbicides, synthetic chemical fertilizers, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The goal of organic farming is to minimize environmental impact while promoting sustainable and biodiversity-friendly agricultural practices.

By using organic methods, it can be recognized that the production of organic cotton has advantages compared to the production of non-organic cotton, namely: reduction of the impact of pesticides and fertilizers on the environment and on the health of farmers, encouragement of biodiversity and crop rotations, improvement of soil quality, reduction of the carbon footprint, better remuneration of farmers.

However, organic cotton production still has drawbacks. Like many organic productions, organic cotton fiber production offers lower yields than conventional cultivation, which generates high production costs and requires farmers to obtain expensive organic certification. Beyond these drawbacks, the demand for organic cotton is still too low compared to the overproduction of the clothing industry, which is moving at two speeds . In addition, for many manufacturers, relying on cotton production is risky: cotton being a natural fiber, it is subject to the vagaries of the weather, pests and crops can be damaged. This is why polyester is today the most widely used material and was nicknamed the "magic fiber for the textile industry" when it came into being in the 1950s, because it offered many advantages.

At Lagoped, because we refuse to produce our clothes from the extraction of new natural raw materials , we have chosen to produce our sweaters, shirts or t-shirts from recycled cotton. Thus, we reuse existing materials rather than producing new fibers. The advantages are significant, it is about minimizing the amount of textile waste and reducing dependence on virgin raw materials .

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Recycled cotton, as its name suggests, is made from cotton fibers recovered from textile waste. The production of these new recycled cotton fibers involves the collection of used clothing, production waste or end-of-life textile products. With nearly 130 billion items of clothing consumed per year according to a study by Oxfam (2020), there is plenty to do!

The collection of cotton textiles used in our garments is carried out in Spain, by our partner EcoLife by Belda Llorens . Our partner collects the fabrics, sorts them according to their composition and color, cleans them to remove impurities, crushes them and mixes them with other fibers to create a new high-quality film, thus maintaining the entire circularity process.

Since the production of recycled cotton clothing is based on the reuse of fibres from existing textiles, it is no longer necessary to grow new cotton crops and this requires a reduced amount of water and energy, thus avoiding the intensive growth phase of cotton crops.

The choice of recycled cotton in the manufacture of Lagoped clothing therefore meets several of our commitments. Firstly, the reduction of the environmental impact of the industry, which implies no longer extracting new natural raw materials to offer adventure clothing that does not affect Nature.

However, our T-shirts are not only made with recycled cotton: alone, the cotton fiber being shortened, it loses its strength. Lagoped has therefore chosen to use a mix of materials (recycled cotton and recycled polyester). This is a bias because recycling the material is more difficult than with a single fiber.

Photo credit: EcoLife by Belda Llorens