: Banana Saris, Lotus Shawls, Bamboo Jeans: How Desi Fashion Is Going Green! #IndiaNEWS #Fashion Changing the type of fabric or the accessories you use could potentially stop generating waste that clutters

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Banana Saris, Lotus Shawls, Bamboo Jeans: How Desi Fashion Is Going Green! #IndiaNEWS #Fashion
Changing the type of fabric or the accessories you use could potentially stop generating waste that clutters landfills while helping you make a unique fashion statement.
This isn’t about ethical, sustainable or slow fashion. This is a complete change in the basic fabric used by all of us. Changing from polyester to cotton or even organic cotton is passé because cotton, though comfortable, is the most water guzzling crop. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the plant needs 10,000 litres of water to get just one kilo of usable cotton.
So the time has come to replace cotton with alternatives like plant waste or the agro residue.
After harvesting the edible and other parts of plants like banana, pineapple, hemp, jute, lotus, bamboo, eucalyptus, flax, cork, sugarcane, etc, what remains is the plant biomass or the waste residue which are generally burnt causing air pollution or go into landfills. This waste is the best source of biopolymers like cellulose, lignin, pectin etc, which can be converted into textile fibres.
Of Natural Fibres
 
C Sekar with his award winning sari using 25 different yarns for the pallu.
Tamil Nadu-based C Sekar, president of the Anakaputhur Weavers Association, known to weave clothes from natural fibres, says, “Everyday, in the temples of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, enormous amounts of banana plants are used to decorate the temple and the deity. The next day, they are thrown out. We collect and source fibres from this waste. Banana stems are the best source of fibre to make the yarn. �
Sekar, a third-generation weaver from Anakaputhur, (earlier famous for chequered Madras fabric), is well known in the weaving community and others associated with the textile industry. Ananafit, the brand under which he markets these products, experiments with natural fibres and his group of women weavers love to make yarns and weave fabric from banana, pineapple, bamboo, aloe vera plants. Sekar is now experimenting to produce silk yarn from lotus plants. In fact, he holds a Limca Book of Records (2011) of weaving a sari pallu using 25 natural fibres.
Weaver of Anakaputhur weaving a sari with banana fiber.
Problem is that the majority of Indian consumers aren’t yet aware of these textiles nor is the textile industry ready to produce the agricultural waste into textile yarn. As Sekar points out, the handloom weavers are ready to experiment but they aren’t getting the technical support needed to make these yarns, to weave the fabric in bulk.
Very few Indian industrial yarn producers have ventured into making these yarns and the production is limited as there isn’t much demand. Whereas several European countries like UK, Portugal, Germany, Italy and others like Australia, China, Canada, Brazil, USA, etc, have started production in bulk.

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