Jiangyin Eusun Garment Co. Ltd

There are only a few organizations at present that can certify fabric as being organic or containing sustainable fiber such as bamboo.

This was one of the problems Jiangyin Eusun Garment Co. Ltd encountered in its early stages of environment-friendly production. When the company submitted its bamboo fabric to Intertek for fiber analysis, test results indicated that the textile is viscose. This is because viscose and bamboo have a very similar molecule structure, both being types of regenerated cellulosic fiber.

Export department manager Janet Sun said there are only three inspection laboratories in the world that can differentiate bamboo from viscose. One is in Switzerland and the rest are in Beijing and Zhejiang province in China.

The company now requires its fabric suppliers to submit samples to the Zhejiang testing center to verify the bamboo fiber content.

Proximity to bamboo fiber hubs was also a challenge for some companies. Five years ago, bamboo fiber could only be sourced from Sichuan province. Its capital city of Chengdu is 2,267km away from Suzhou in Jiangsu province. For this reason, Suzhou Feiyan Clothing Fty used to spend a lot on transportation costs and had to deal with long lead times.

Increased awareness for sustainable fiber, however, has led companies in the textile hubs of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong provinces to open up processing lines for bamboo fiber. Many of these suppliers still source bamboo in Sichuan as the quality is better than variants grown in other provinces.
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'Green' production processes

Although companies are adopting organic, sustainable or recycled fiber, the garments cannot be considered environment-friendly if harmful chemicals are still used.

To ensure manufacturing remains environment-friendly, Nicertex inspects dye factories periodically to verify that no harmful chemicals are added to the colorants. This is implemented even though the company has a long-term working relationship with the specialist, all of which are able to provide Ciba pigment.

In addition, Nicertex sources from mills that offer only organic cotton. This is to ensure the fiber will not have traces of pesticide and other chemicals used to grow conventional cotton.

Further, the company adopts YKK zippers and metal snap buttons that are nickel-free and nontoxic. The sewing thread is colored using environment-friendly dyestuff. The hangtags come in handmade cardboard, while the packaging is biodegradable plastic or reusable cotton.

Nicertex began offering environment-friendly apparel in 2005. The company is in the process of converting all of its production lines and concentrate on organic clothing.

Qingdao Hemp Fortex separates organic materials during production and stores them in a sectioned area of its warehouse. The fabric is colored using dyes from Bayer. The company also adopts natural materials such as wood, shell and coconut to accessorize the garments.

One of the earliest makers of environment-friendly apparel China, Qingdao Hemp Fortex started production of hemp clothing in 1999. The company adopted organic cotton and recycled PET in 2002. It is one of the makers contracted by Patagonia to produce recycled PET apparel.

Demand from clients prompted Suzhou Feiyan to produce apparel made of sustainable fiber five years ago. Now, the company adopts a wide range of environment-friendly textiles such as organic cotton, bamboo, soybean and even milk protein fiber.

Jiangyin Eusun is still at the early stages of green production, having started offering soybean and bamboo apparel only in 2006. The company expects environment-friendly clothing to take up a larger share of exports in coming months.
Note: All price quotes in this report are in US dollars unless otherwise specified. FOB prices were provided by the companies interviewed only as reference prices at the time of interview and may have changed.
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17/07/2009