The pollution of the textile and clothing industry has existed for a long time, and the green transformation is imminent. According to the United Nations, the total carbon emissions of the fashion industry exceed those of all international flights and shipping combined, accounting for 10 percent of global carbon emissions, making it the second most polluting industry after the oil industry. Regarding how to reduce pollution in the fashion industry, Xtep, a Chinese sporting goods brand, is providing its own solution.
Earlier this week, a new environmentally friendly product - the polylactic acid t-shirt, was launched by the brand. Polylactic acid (PLA) is mainly extracted from corn, straw and other starch-containing crops and transformed into polylactic acid fibre after spinning. Clothes made from polylactic acid fibre can be degraded naturally within one year. Replacing plastic chemical fibre with polylactic acid can reduce the harm to the environment from the source.
On World Environment Day, Xtep launched the world's first PLA windbreaker, becoming the first enterprise in the industry to overcome the problem of PLA colouring as well as being able to produce polylactic acid products. Previously, PLA accounted for 19 percent of the whole trench coat fabric. A year later, PLA t-shirts has risen sharply to 60 percent.
Xtep said that the PLA content of knitted sweaters that are scheduled to go on sale in the second quarter of 2022 will be further increased to 67 percent, and in the third quarter of the same year, 100 percent pure PLA trench coats will be on the market. The company aims to gradually achieve breakthroughs in the application of PLA products, and strive to achieve more than one million pieces of PLA products in a single season before 2023.
Xtep also has other environmentally friendly products within the group's "environmental protection family". In addition to the ready-made clothing made of PLA material, there are also shoes, clothing and accessories made from organic cotton, serona, DuPont paper and other environmentally friendly materials. The design and production of environmentally friendly products is not only limited to the main brands of Xtep Group, its new brands Saucony and Palladium also join the exploration in the field of environmental protection. It is understood that at present, products made of environmentally friendly materials account for 30 percent of the entire category of Xtep Group.
It is supported by the powerful patron of Xtep environmental protection technology platform. Xtep environmental protection technology platform promotes environmental protection from the three dimensions of "raw material environmental protection", "production environmental protection" and "environmental protection by consumption", and has become the main driving force of the group's green material innovation.
Among them, "raw material environmental protection" and "production environmental protection” not only attach importance to the environmental protection of raw materials, but also attach importance to the environmental protection of the production process. Because of the non-high temperature resistance of PLA, the dyeing temperature and setting temperature of the production process are 0-10 °C and 40-60 °C, respectively, which are lower than those of ordinary polyester. If all the fabrics of Xtep are replaced with PLA, 300 million cubic meters of natural gas can be saved per year, which is equivalent to 2.6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 620000 tons of coal consumption.
Lu Peng, a researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believed that the sense of social responsibility of China's private enterprises is constantly improving, and the awareness of collective environmental protection is becoming the mainstream of China's private enterprises. The practice of sustainable development by a larger company like Xtep will bring great inspiration to the "concept of justice and benefit" of Chinese and even global counterparts.
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