@rumixfeelgood does it again. First it was fabric made from plastic bottles, now they have designed a new range where the fabric is made from coffee ground.
On top of this, the production of turning this coffee into yarn uses less energy and resources than turning traditional cotton into yarn.
I am sure you have not thought about coffee waste before, however considering how much coffee is consumed, can you start to think about how much coffee is going into landfills around the country? According to Planet Arks research on coffee waste, here are the fast facts:
Australians alone consume 6 billion cups of coffee every year. The grounds that make these coffees are used only once and then immediately discarded.
When spent coffee grounds are sent to landfill they can produce methane and carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
The waste coffee grounds also contribute towards the huge financial cost on tax payers of running and maintaining landfills in Australia.
While many coffee brands promote the ethical treatment of their growers and the sustainability of their farms, little attention is paid to the environmental impact of the organic waste at the end of the coffee chain in Australia.
Now switching over the production of cotton, before cotton even gets to the stage of being spun into yarn, it has to be farmed. You may or may not know that there are some really alarming issues with the way most of the cotton is farmed around the world. From WWF here are the fast facts on cotton farming:
It can take more than 20,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of cotton; equivalent to a single T-shirt and pair of jeans. 73% of global cotton harvest comes from irrigated land (as documented in the WWF report The Impact of Cotton on Freshwater Resources and Ecosystems).
Agriculture is the largest source of pollution in most countries. 2.4% of the world’s crop land is planted with cotton and yet it accounts for 24% and 11% of the global sales of insecticide and pesticides respectively. Unsafe use of agricultural chemicals has severe health impacts on workers in the field and on ecosystems that receive excess doses that run-off from farms.
Unsustainable cotton farming, with massive inputs of water and pesticides, has already been responsible for the destruction of large-scale ecosystems such as the Aral Sea in central Asia and the deteriorating health and livelihoods of people living there. Cotton is also one of the most 'thirsty' crops in several river basins including the Indus River in Pakistan, the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia, and the Rio Grande in United States and Mexico.
Rumi X is constantly proving to everyone that you CAN re-purpose the most unlikely and unwanted products to reduce not only waste but also harmful and resource heavy farming. Be the change you want to see in the world, even if it is just choosing a brand like this over one that doesn't care for the sustainability of our planet.
AK xx