Organic cotton; the best way to 'treat' your little ones

Natural Origins for our little people

If you thought organic cotton products were all beige and daggy looking then look no further than Natural Origins (www.naturalorigins.com.au) for view changing selection of organic products. Thanks to Crecy and Jeremy, Natural Origins makes available to both individuals and retail outlets a range of organic cotton products including the beautiful range of Ellaroo baby carriers and slings, the Kanoe motion sensitive baby hammocks and the delightful Scout Baby range of kids clothing. I'm currently trialling the Mei Tai baby carrier (in the stunning Hershey design) and LOVING it!

We caught up with the Natural Origins team to find out a little about the ethics behind their company, the products and what drives them; we also ended up finding out a lot more about the benefits of eco dyes, baby carrying and the joy sunny Australia. So sit back with a fair trade, organic cuppa and be inspired, this is a good one!

Ellaroo Ring Sling

What inspired you to bring Natural Origins to Australia?

After careers in IT and film location management, we both felt we wanted to be involved in a business that focused on environmental sustainability. Just at the right time we were reconnected with family friends, Raja and Susannah Ramji, who had been building a very successful business in the USA sourcing organic cotton fabric and managing the process of product manufacture for several large and boutique brand names. The Ramjis had just started a project with a small Boston-based family business that had designed a really beautiful range of organic cotton-based children’s furniture. As soon as we saw the products, we were hooked. They were really unusual, totally sustainable and poles apart from a lot of the plastic, and often toxic, stuff which is swiftly discarded and ends up in landfill. The furniture was called Nest, and we became their Asia Pacific distributors. Since then, we have been gradually building a portfolio of really good quality organic cotton products focused mainly on the mother and baby market.

What are your three favourite items from the Natural Origins range and why?

It’s quite difficult to pick any three favourite products because one of the important criteria for sourcing the products is that they are the kind of things we would want to buy. However, if we had to chose, it would probably be the Ellaroo Ring Sling because it is so versatile and stylish, the Kanoe baby hammock because of its clever, simple and elegant design, and the Scout range of clothing because it is such fun for children to wear and so easy for parents to look after!

Kanoe Baby Hammock

For those who aren’t versed in the benefits of organic cotton, why should they choose it in preference to conventionally grown cotton products?

There are two reasons why you should choose something made from organic cotton rather than from conventionally grown cotton – the health of the planet and the health of the person wearing that cotton product. Let me explain.

People often buy a t-shirt or dress made from cotton because it is hailed as a natural fibre so the assumption is that is that it will be better or healthier than a man made fabric. What the cotton industry doesn’t tell us is that conventionally grown cotton (which is nearly all of it!) is one of the most toxic crops in the world. 25% of the world’s pesticides and 10% of the world’s synthetic fertilisers are used to grow cotton which covers less than 3% of the world’s farmland. 150 grams of pesticides and synthetic fertilisers are needed to produce enough cotton for just one t-shirt. Defoliants, fungicides and herbicides are also used in large quantities. Most of

these chemicals are classed by the World Health Organisation as moderately

hazardous or highly hazardous because they can lead to cancer, birth defects

and nervous system disorders. Moreover, these toxic chemical have a highly detrimental impact on the land, the waterways and on the health of the workers who produce the cotton and this prolific and ever increasing use of chemicals goes hand in hand with a huge demand for water, often in areas where water is in short supply.

By contrast, organic cotton is grown with no harmful chemicals, the plant uses little water and what water is used is recyclable. Because the ground is not poisoned, food crops can be grown to feed the villages and to enrich the soil, and bugs are controlled by the introduction of other insects that feed on the ones that attack the cotton. It all makes so much sense!.

The Natural Origins range has a heavy focus on products for babies and toddlers including organic slings, and organic hammock for baby to sleep in and organic baby clothes, is their a reason you have chosen to focus on these products?

Yes, more by accident than design. As we read more about the difference between conventional and organic cotton, we realised just how important the organic cotton industry is, and what better place to start to promote it than in the baby market? As parents, we are very aware of the importance of doing the very best by our children from their earliest moments. Why would you clothe your tiny and vulnerable baby in cotton that had been grown and dyed with toxic chemicals, many of which do not wash out, when there is a pure and gentle alternative? This is particularly relevant for babies and children as they often have allergies which these chemicals can irritate.

For those of us who have used carriers with our babies, the benefits are obvious but for those new to the idea, what are the main advantages of baby wearing?

There is lots of research to show the importance of baby wearing but, even before you look at any of this research, it seems pretty obvious that babies would find great comfort and reassurance in the arms of their parents. Since the earliest moments of consciousness, babies have grown accustomed to the sounds of their mother’s body in particular– the rhythm of her breathing, her voice, her walk - so it stands to reason that this familiarity would be hugely comforting when a baby is confronted by all the challenges of the big, noisy and bright world outside the womb. Closeness to the parent provides physical and verbal reassurance and offers continuity and a safe place from which to explore this new world. It is the one constant in this new awesome adventure. The research I mentioned just now shows that babies that are carried in a sling rather than pushed in a pram, cry less, are more alert, more attentive, smarter, learn quicker, are more confident, have better speech and physical development, and are more humanised because they are so much a part of adult interaction and adult experiences. It is also a wonderful experience for the parent – not only do they have the comforting bonding closeness of their baby, but at the same time they also they have hands free independence to get on with all those everyday tasks that await their attention. In particular, it helps dads to bond with their babies and it makes breast feeding on the go much easier for mums. It also provides mums with a bit of cardiovascular activity and weight training which will help shed those extra kilos gained during pregnancy. It certainly did that for me!

Mei Tai Carrier

The Ellaroo range of baby carriers offer a ring sling, the mei tai and the mei hip. Is there a standout favourite with customers, or do people choose different carriers for different circumstances?

Each carrier is designed to do slightly different things. All parents are different so it is great to be able to offer a choice of carriers. The Ring Sling is a wonderfully comforting way to carry newborns who need to be fed and settled for much of the day (and night!). It is really easy to do this in the Ring Sling because you can move your baby into different positions by just adjusting the fabric through the rings. You don’t have to disturb your baby by taking off the sling. The tail of the fabric provides a discrete cover for breastfeeding, a handy cloth and a source of protection from the sun and cold. (Some parents even use the sling as a hammock or a child restraint or as a cover for a supermarket trolley baby seat!!). The Mei Tai is ideal for parents with different aged children as it will carry a newborn and a toddler equally well. It is slightly more structured than the Ring Sling without being bulky or cumbersome. It is also easily interchangeable between parents of different sizes. No buckles to adjust – it just ties with a double knot and there are lots of different ways of wearing it. The Mei Hip allows you to carry your toddler on your hip in great comfort. Lots of parents naturally carry their infants this way but they can end up with sore necks and backs. The wide supportive strap of the Mei Hip cups the shoulder and distributes the baby’s weight across the wearer’s torso counterbalancing the weight so it prevents back and neck pain.

In addition to being made from organic cotton all the baby carriers use eco dyes, which are a far safer and more environmentally responsible alternative to conventional dyes, can you tell us a little about this?

Unlike conventional cotton dyes, eco dyes are gentle on the environment and on the people who wear clothing coloured in this way because they do not contain any of the heavy metals or formaldehyde which are part of the conventional cotton dyeing process.

There are two types of eco dyes available at the moment – low impact fibre-reactive dyes and vegetable dyes. The dyes used in all our products are low impact (because they have a minimal impact on the environment) and fibre-reactive (because the dye binds to the fibre so small quantities of dye are required to achieve a rich and vibrant colour. Moreover these dyes use minimal amounts of water and the waste is treatable and recyclable. This has enormous ecological benefits at the dye house but also for the consumer as the colour doesn’t wash out and enter the waterways and the product retains its original colour. All low impact fibre-reactive dyes meet the organic standards specification for toxicity and are certified to Oeko-Tex-100 standards. These standards apply, not just to the dyes that are used but also to the whole dyeing process. All fabric needs to be bleached before it can be dyed to create uniform colour. Conventional cotton is dyed with chlorine which can be carcinogenic but organic cotton dyeing uses hydrogen peroxide which breaks down into water and oxygen.

The reason eco dyes are such an important step forward is because conventional dyes are often very toxic. The dyes used in colouring conventional cotton are usually Azo dyes or sulpha dyes. Azo dyes contain heavy metals – chromium, magnesium, vanadium. These are banned substances by Ecocert, Oeko-Tex etc because they are carcinogenic. Sulpha dyes are sulphur-based and have low levels of acid and they are banned by organic certifiers because they don't meet the required toxicity standards.

Apart from low impact fibre-reactive dyes which are used to dye 98% of organic cotton fabrics produced worldwide, there are organic vegetable dyes which are also permitted in organic cotton dyeing. The issue with these is that they don't meet the colourfast standards and they create significant environmental issues. Vegetable dyes have a low absorption index, which measures the amount of dye needed to dye a yard of fabric, because they don't stick to the fabric or fibre at the time of dyeing (or when you wash the finished garment). As a result a much larger amount of the dye has to be used to achieve required colour depth, and consequently, a significant amount of precious water. Most of the unabsorbed dye washes away and enters the water . (The term for this is Biological Oxygen Demand – it has a high BOD!). The only currently available way to make vegetable dyes adhere better is to use mordanting agents which contain heavy metals such as chromium – so you are back to square one in a sense! However research is ongoing into finding ways of making the vegetable dyes adhere better without toxic chemicals and we talked to a few bed linen manufacturers about this while we were in India. One of the difficulties about the area of vegetable dyes is that it is not well regulated. Natural dyes sound so much better than synthetic dyes but as yet there is no really sustainable natural alternative.

What advice would you have for anybody wishing to set up an ethical business?

Setting up an ethical business is in many ways no different from setting up any kind of business in that you have to start by doing a lot of research to make sure there is a market for your product. This is just as true for the organic cotton business. People won’t buy your product just because it is organic, sustainable and ethically made: they have to like the product in its own right first!

Then you have to do a lot of research to make sure your product is certified all the way through its production and to be comfortable that its impact on people and the environment is in line with your own goals. It seems counterproductive to produce a product made from organic cotton if it is put together in a factory that uses child labour and pays its workers a pittance for long hours of toil in terrible working conditions.

We’re involved in Natural Origins because we wanted to be associated with a sustainable business which does the right thing at every step of the production process. Our cotton is certified organic, the farmer gets a good price for his cotton, we use eco dyes which don’t harm the workers, the environment or the people who wear the products, and the products are all produced in India under fair labour codes of practice. Where possible we use recycled materials in our marketing and packaging. The padding in our slings and baby carriers is made from recycled plastic bottles which are melted and combed into fibre which is non-allergenic. The wood in our Kanoes is plantation grown. However, we recognise we have a long way to go as well. For example, we would love to source our organic cotton from Australia but, at the moment, there is no commercially grown organic cotton in Australia. Everyone needs to think about carbon offsets and how to minimise their footprint. Our goal is to be an example of a sustainable business in terms of its carbon footprint. The more we advance in our collective knowledge about environmental issues, the more we are discovering how best to protect our world.

The perfect day is different for everybody, how would you describe yours?

Our business, like any other, relies on us choosing the right products so a perfect day for us is when we hear that one of our products has made a difference to someone’s life – that a sling has helped a mother reassure and comfort her baby while getting on with her chores, or a Kanoe has helped a baby to settle so that harmony can be restored to the home and the whole family can get some much needed sleep.

On a more domestic level, a perfect day is a day when our children are happy and filled with the joys of life.

On top of that, a perfect day is when we wake up to a blue sky and golden sunshine. After decades spent in England, that is something we never take for granted!!

For more information visit www.naturalorigins.com.au