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National Cotton Council (NCC) has signed an agreement with the China Cotton Textile Association (CCTA) to foster enhanced communication between the two. The agreement was signed in Beijing during a recent visit of an NCC leadership delegation to share information with the Chinese cotton/textile industries and update them on the US cotton industry, the NCC said in a press release.
With a focus on quality and in an effort to combat growing competition from synthetic fibres, the two Associations will explore opportunities to jointly promote both US raw cotton and US-manufactured yarn as well as Chinese cotton.
Coordinated by the NCC's export promotions arm, Cotton Council International (CCI), the visit was the seventh by a US cotton industry delegation to China since the establishment of the US-China Cotton Leadership Exchange Programme by the NCC and the China Cotton Association (CCA) in 2006.
"Through clothing donation, people can support many causes that are critical to serving a wide group of individuals in need in the local community. According to a study commissioned by ‘Savers,’ a staggering 85 per cent of clothing and textiles ends up in landfills, even though 95 per cent can be reused or recycled. Americans throw away 8.1 trash bags of clothing on average each year or 26 billion pounds collectively."
Through clothing donation, people can support many causes that are critical to serving a wide group of individuals in need in the local community. According to a study commissioned by ‘Savers,’ a staggering 85 per cent of clothing and textiles ends up in landfills, even though 95 per cent can be reused or recycled. Americans throw away 8.1 trash bags of clothing on average each year or 26 billion pounds collectively. This is surprising considering aluminum beverage can recycling rates in the United States are at 65 per cent. Americans embrace recycling household waste, yet unwanted clothing is commonly discarded.
According to Tony Shumpert, VP, Reuse and Recycling for ‘Savers,’ they go through every single donated item to determine what is of the level of quality for their sales floors. In fact, approximately 60 per cent is priced for resale in their stores or makes its way to another process of reuse.
Savers wanted to know why more clothing and textiles are ending up in landfills. The company commissioned a study to understand why people aren’t doing more to reuse and recycle clothing, and released its ‘State of Reuse Report’ recently. Creating a significant jump in clothing reuse and recycling rates requires overcoming a few major hurdles, Savers found.
Environmental impact
Fashion industry has a major impact on our planet although it isn’t obvious at first glance. It has even been called the second dirtiest industry in the world after oil. This is in large part due to the impact of growing and dying cotton, with its astounding environmental impact. Although a mere 2.4 per cent of cropland is dedicated to cotton production, it accounts for 24 per cent of global pesticide use. It is also a very thirsty crop which often needs to be cultivated on irrigated land.
The industry can take over 700 gallons of water to create just one T-shirt and over 1,800 to manufacture a pair of jeans, Shumpert explained. When you think of that, the more we can donate these products and get them into a reuse stream versus throwing them away, the less burden we put on our environment, he said.
Although many people think twice before throwing a recyclable beverage bottle in the trash, this is not always the case for clothing. When most of us think about polluting industries, we often think of coal power plants or oil refineries, not the T-shirts on our backs. Clearly, reusing clothing to decrease the need for such large quantities of virgin material production is a simple solution.
Social benefits of donating clothes
Explains Shumpert, donating clothing has a major benefit in communities. People donate items to one of Saver’s nonprofit partners. They then convert clothing and household items into revenue by selling those goods to us. Through clothing donation, people can support many causes that are critical to serving a wide group of individuals in need in the local community. It creates this opportunity to have this sustainable, consistent, unrestricted funding for their missions.
Some of the organisations that Savers partners with include: Big Brothers Big Sisters, Easter Seals, the Epilepsy Foundation and the YWCA. To make it simpler to donate clothing and household items, Savers stores are also donation centers. The nonprofit partner associated with the store then directly benefits from these donated items.
If people are aware of the social benefits of donating, this can also help boost rates. According to the State of Reuse Report, once people do make the decision to donate, helping others outweighs convenience, sparing landfills or even tax write-offs. Sixty-four percent of Canadian respondents and 59 per cent of U.S. respondents donate goods to benefit nonprofit organizations.
Make it easier to donate
State of Reuse Report found that, out of people who do not donate clothing, 1 in 3 found it easier to throw items away. Since most people have garbage cans or dumpsters within feet of our homes, it is hard to make things more convenient than land filling.
Savers found that space constraints can both encourage and hinder clothing donations. Running out of closet space was the top reason people were prompted to donate clothing. And the more convenient it is to donate clothing, the less space people will need in their homes to store clothing before donating them, as they can make more frequent trips to donation centers.
Recently, more than 100 guests from across the wool supply chain attended The Woolmark Company’s annual Licensee Conference that was held in Suzhou, China. The seminar aimed to provide insights into industry trends, share industry information and enhance the global competitiveness of Chinese wool textile and garment companies.
Li Binhong, President of China Textiles Development Centre; Yang Xiaoxiong, President of Nanjing Wool Market; and Zhao Huizhou, Chief Designer and Founder of apparel brand EACHWAY, were among the guests invited to speak at the seminar. In addition, The Woolmark Company’s Country Manager China, Jeff Ma, spoke about wool fashion and innovation in his opening remarks.
Guo Ruiping, Professor at Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (BIFT) and Director of Research and Development Centre for Wool Knitting Design, also delivered a keynote speech, touching upon the direction of wool product development and wool market trends for 2016, as well as the creative process of wool design and the collaborations between the industry and the research centre.
In order to facilitate the local textile industries get their requirement of raw material from abroad in the face of shortage of the commodity in the country, the Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) has urged the Pakistani government to waive all duties and taxes on import of cotton immediately.
Following the devastating crop failure in 2015-16 season when cotton output fell to 9.786 million bales, the Pakistani textile industry has been forced to import raw cotton from overseas to meet its requirement of basic raw material, the KCA said in a statement.
Though the industry wants to ensure contribution towards achieving the target of exports fixed by the government, but the increased taxes on imported cotton are not only translating to rise in cost of doing business of the textile sector, but also making such products costlier in the international market,” the KCA statement added.
The textile industry pays three per cent custom duty and one per cent additional duty on import of cotton. The KCA urged the government to ensure free trading policy in cotton i.e. free export and free import of cotton without any quantitative and qualitative restrictions. The government needs to take concrete measures to increase cotton production in the years to come, the statement said.
This would ensure that there would be ample surplus cotton available for the domestic consumptions as well as exports to keep the presence of Pakistan cotton in the international market and earn much needed foreign exchange for the country. The provision of export surplus will ensure international price of cotton to the Pakistani growers.
Peru's textile industry generates over 2,50,000 formal jobs and serves many international clothing brands.
It produces one of the world's finest cotton varieties. Peruvian Pima is included among Peru’s flagship products.
The Inca country also produces fine alpaca fibers. Peru hosts 80 per cent of the world’s total alpaca population.
Since 2015, Peru has consolidated as the Pacific Alliance’s second largest knitted clothing supplier after Mexico.
Peru is also one of Brazil’s top garment suppliers, thus having ousted China in the T-shirt category.
Creating intricate, detailed textile designs, Peruvian artisans draw from the world’s longest textile tradition. With knowledge that stretches back millennia, it’s no wonder that their hands create some of the most beautiful, sumptuous fashion in the world. It is by this path that Peru has entered the world market as a textile superstar.
Textiles continue to play an integral role in Peruvian culture. They are given as gifts in courtship and are important parts of marriage and coming of age ceremonies. Because most of Peruvian textile creators are women, money earned from this art is more likely to go toward feeding and caring for children and improving the lives of women as they become larger contributors to household income.
In order to meet rising demand from its textile industry while domestic output remains poor, Vietnam is set to import 1.2 million tonnes of cotton this year. The import would be up by about 19 per cent from that of 2015, it is understood.
Most of the imported cotton will come from the United States, which has been Vietnam's top supplier of the raw material. More would come in from India, Brazil and Australia.
Vietnam's exports of textiles and garments that is the country's second-biggest cash earner of the country after smart phones are projected to jump 36 per cent this year to $31 billion.
Unenthusiastic purchasing and slow supply of the new cotton crop was cause of driving down cotton prices in the Brazilian market in the second fortnight of June. This despite low availability of good quality cotton.
The ginners of the country were of the opinion that as the harvesting season advances; domestic supply would increase in the first fortnight of July.
However, some agents were also of the view that as activities intensify, growers and trading companies may prioritise closing contracts signed earlier for deliveries to the Brazilian and global markets.
The Center for Advances Studies in Applied Economics (CEPEA) noted that, thus higher supply in the Brazilian spot market may be observed only in August.
The CEPEA further said that a few agents, mainly ginners were active in the spot market while purchasers acquired smaller lots from the 2014/15 and 2015/16 crops to meet immediate demands.
Registering a year-on-year surge of 6.1 per cent, Vietnam’s garment and textile exports only reached nearly US$8.5 billion in the first five months of the year. As reported by a number of enterprises, export orders tended not to increase, which was accompanied by a decline in export prices and increase in production costs, resulting in a lot of drawbacks in manufacturing and distributing products.
Such circumstances are taking place more severely among small and medium-sized enterprises, which are facing fierce competition with regional opponents from Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Bangladesh. This indicates that Vietnam’s garments and textile industry is being confronted with numerous challenges as consumers have been switching part of their orders to several other countries such as Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos due to export tax incentives to Europe and the US – the two largest export markets of Vietnam’s garment and textile sector. Meanwhile, Vietnam’s garment and textile exports to the US and EU are subject to an average taxation of 17 per cent and nearly 10 per cent respectively. If nothing changes, it is not until mid-2018 that the roadmap of tax reduction under TPP and EVFTA will take effect, which will therefore bring about a lot of disadvantages for Vietnamese enterprises in the process of competition with international opponents.
Moreover, China, India and Bangladesh, who are on the ‘upper floor’ compared to Vietnam in the global supply chain, are also implementing a number of active measures aiming to compensate for the downsides caused by their TPP non-membership, driving competition to new heights. Unless effective solutions are taken soon, Vietnam will surely become an ‘underdog’ on the world market.
This October, the Textile Exchange’s annual Textile Sustainability Conference is to be held 2016 in Hamburg, Germany from October 4-7.
This is where leaders in sustainability will congregate to share the kind of progress, knowledge and best practices that could improve the apparel industry.
The conference will host more than 300 attendees the world over representing all parts of the textile supply chain. Brands and retailers, marketing and communications departments, supply and value chain staff, designers and non-profits will all be able to benefit from the conference.
“Anyone interested in textile sustainability can pick up something from this event,” said Textile Exchange, a global non-profit organization aimed at accelerating sustainable practices in the textile supply chain, in a statement.
Topics that are likely to be discussed at the conference will include Flexibility and Equivalence in Certification, Supply Chain Mapping 101, Pricing: Shining the Light on Market Mechanisms, and taking responsibility for animals in the value chain, to name a few.
All set to take place from July 19-20, Première Vision New York will present collections from 352 exhibitors, a trend area, and the unique Première Vision colour range, along with numerous seminars, fashion exhibitions and special creative collaborations. For the second edition in a row, Première Vision will be held at Pier 94, a venue with the right capacity for a show that continues to grow, according to the organisers.
Première Vision, a leading event for several years now for fabrics, textile designs and accessories, the event has also become a sourcing destination for leather buyers and industry professionals looking for new quality solutions and full packaging manufacturing services. Following January edition of this sourcing platform, visitors will discover a highly diversified selective offer this month.
Meanwhile, Première Vision and The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) have renewed their collaboration. In close cooperation with the CFDA, this partnership allows Première Vision to offer designers more targeted services and provide them with a range of support at Premiere Vision New York.
The collaboration comprises various activities, such as providing assistance to young brands and designers, particularly with small-scale orders; fashion presentations for CFDA Members, and working together to select the Première Vision Brand Ambassadors. Future cooperation will extend to manufacturing, a sector that Première Vision has been developing since January 2016.
