Sustainability
MYANAMI’ aims to recover fabrics that would otherwise be destined for pulp and to give them a new life. We select fabrics with the highest performance or with the highest value to transform them into garments that can accompany you in both your everyday life or in your special moments. In the event that there is no availability of recycled fabrics for the production MYANAMI’ aims to select high-performance fabrics produced with particular attention to sustainability that involve recycled material for their production or that have particular characteristics that make them performing in the long run.
It will be a gift for us and for the next generations to try to use existing fabrics on the planet instead of transforming new resources or using enormous amounts of water.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Recovering and processing fabrics that would otherwise end up in landfills or incinerators means reducing by
WARMING
EUTROFIZATION
By adopting a circular economy system, a real solution is given to the problems caused by the fast fashion system.
Recycling and transforming potential wasted fabrics means:
- To reintroduce them into the production cycle, avoiding CO2 emissions due to disposal in landfills or incinerators;
- To create new products without touching virgin resources while protecting the ecosystem;
- To avoid waste by using still valid material;
- To reduce smog pollution to obtain a positive well-being result and a favorable economic impact.
For each 1kg of recovered fabrics we are able to save (and in the case of recovery not to emit) 3.76kg of CO2.
The equivalent of 4 hot showers.
If you want to know how much CO2 you produce, visit this link
In case existing stocks would not be available or the quality would not satisfy us we would proceed with some other options always keeping in mind sustainability. That’s why we would love to share with you some basic but very useful information about how to navigate in the sustainability world.
What Is Recycled Cashmere?
Possibly the most coveted wool out there, cashmere is as downy-soft as it is rare. Unfortunately, global demand has caused a tidal wave of cashmere on the market, with it putting increased pressure on Mongolian farmers and herding grounds. Leading to overbreeding of cashmere goats, a decrease in fiber quality, and the desertification of the Mongolian region. That’s why we have decided to work exclusively with recycled cashmere.
Traditionally, Cashmere wool comes from goats situated in the Himalayas of Inner Mongolia, where the flock experiences temperatures of -40°C. The goats develop a quality fleece with properties to survive these rugged conditions, which ultimately translates into the garment. It’s the wool’s unique properties and remote location that led Cashmere to be considered a luxury material, though it has become ubiquitous today.
There are some Italian mills that have developed recycled cashmere yarns, made from post-consumer knitwear to produce the same softness of virgin cashmere but at a fraction of the environmental impact and this would be our choice in case of no availability of already existing cachemire.
What Is Recycled Wool?
We think recycled wool is pretty awesome. Recycled wool is repurposed from either pre- (production waste) or post-consumer wool (old garments) that would otherwise end-up in landfill or go to waste. While virgin wool fibers come with a pretty hefty environmental price tag (think; land required to rear the livestock, methane gases as well as water and chemicals in the production process), recycled wool not only extends the lifespan of fabrics already made but is produced at a fraction of the environmental cost.
In Italy there is a long time activity of producing high-end recycled wool yarns, using a process called mechanical dyeing. This process sees old sweaters and cutoff fabric, sorted by grade and color, before being shredded, spun back into a new yarn, and knitted back together – saving water and skipping the chemicals in the process. The result: clothing with the same luxurious quality of virgin wool at a fraction of the environmental cost.
What Is Traceable Merino?
When it gets cold outside, nothing quite provides warmth and comfort like a good wool knit. Wool is a naturally produced, biodegradable and renewable fibre but like all materials there’s a complex supply chain and many ethical considerations to take into account, including environmental impacts and animal welfare.
To help ensure respect for the environment and fair treatment of animals, we only work with Merino wool that is non-mulesed and 100% traceable. Collaborating with our mills and sourcing partners we work to achieve origin traceability down to the farm and follow the wool through our entire supply chain.
What Is Recycled Synthetics?
There are two broad categories of materials that clothing can be made from; natural and synthetic. Synthetic fabrics such as Polyester and Nylon are produced from petroleum – with an estimated 343 million barrels of oil used per year to produce synthetic materials. The product of non-renewable petrochemicals, created in a process that is energy intensive and highly polluting, these materials have flooded fashion since the 70’s and propelled the growth of disposable fashion because they are so cheap. This development has come at huge expense to our planet: not only does the pollution involved in creating them contribute to global warming, but without large scale collection and recycling infrastructure most of it ends up in landfills, from where it continues to make its way into nature and oceans with it endangering our biodiversity.
Recycled PET and Recycled Nylon, however, are synthetic materials that are derived from waste plastic. While still a man-made material that will not biodegrade, these recycled alternatives are developed from plastics that already exist in the world, helping to turn waste into something useful. As an added bonus, producing recycled materials requires less energy than virgin fibers – if deployed in the right way – while at the same time rescuing waste from landfills and oceans as it is collected or reclaimed in clean up projects.
What Is Organic Cotton?
Organic cotton is essentially a chemical free cotton, as it is grown without the use of insecticides and pesticides. That’s great news for farmers and the planet, as it eliminates workers’ exposure to toxins and is better for soil health, helping to preserve soil fertility, as well as not harming rivers or freshwater sources near the farms.
That said organic cotton doesn’t come without its flaws, while it eliminates toxic chemicals, making it a vast improvement on its conventional sibling, cotton is one of the most-used fibres in the fashion industry. As such it demands large areas of arable land as well as huge quantities of water, in often drought prone areas. Some research indicates that organic cotton may even be thirstier than conventional cotton. It’s the reduced impact on farmers’ health, biodiversity and land degradation that continues to motivate our transition but we always look for new ways in which we can reduce our impact.
Another benefit of cotton is that it’s a natural fiber that degrades naturally, as opposed to man made fibers like polyester. However the chemicals used for dying the garments may still be harmful.
This is why our preferred choice will always be to choose cotton already available on the market that would allow us to reduce the impact almost to zero as it would not be necessary to use resources, water, or arable lands.