Posts Tagged ‘ Milk Fiber ’

Milk Fiber: eco or not? 2.0

In Milk Fiber: eco or not? of the 24 March 2011, Ethicalista has already been addressing the sustainability concerns of Milk Fiber.

During this last summer many blogs, magazines and journalists have been talking extensively about the German fashion designer Anke Domaske who realized the latest collection of her Mademoiselle Chi Chi entirely with an apparently innovative Milk Fiber created by her and her team called QMilch.

This is part of a today Reuters article where she clearly states that Qmilch is completely natural and ecofriendly.

Milk fabric has been around since the 1930s but was always produced in unecological ways that used a lot of chemicals. Unlike earlier prototypes, QMilch is made almost entirely from casein.

“We have developed an all-natural fiber consisting of a very high concentration of casein, with a few other natural ingredients — and in only two years,” the former microbiology student Domaske said.

The casein is extracted from dried milk powder and then heated up in a type of meat-mincing machine with other natural ingredients. The fiber comes out in strands and is then spun into yarn on a spinning machine.

Domaske said it would take about 6 liters of milk to produce an entire dress, which costs about 150 euros($199) to 200 euros.

Luckily, for that kind of money, the clothes don’t come with an expiry date — during the heating process, the molecules bind in such a way that the protein won’t decompose.

Due to its anti-bacterial qualities, the milk fiber can also be used in medicine and makeup. Even some auto companies have looked into using the fiber for car upholstery.

(Reporting By Natalia Drozdiak, editing by Paul Casciato, for REUTERS )

Here after Anke Domaske interview at Deutsche Welle

Milk fiber – eco or not?

Lately on the media there were a lot of articles telling how eco friendly and “good” for human skin Milk Fiber fashion is.

Reading these articles it really looked like one could simply skim some milk, dehydrate it and spin it into a thread. Trying to look a bit more deeply in how manufactures and producers describe Milk Fiber there is not much more. Except some clues concerning technological processes or copolymerization, the process described is very similar to the well documented production of the 1930’s Milk Fiber (invented by Italian inventor Ferretti and commercialized as Lanital), clearly involving heavy chemicals including Formaldehyde. All today’s producers do describe Milk Fiber as environmental friendly and even good for human skin. At the same time none describes how really Casein Protein – a waste product in cheese making – becomes a yarn.

exchangingfire.wordpress.com author asked him/her self the same question:

WHAT IS MILK FIBER?

here is his conclusion:

Milk Fiber is a blend of casein protein and the chemical acrylonitrile, which is used to make acrylic. It’s made using a process that is similar to rayon/viscose, but because it’s a regenerated protein fiber and not a regenerated cellulose fiber, it reacts like wool

Of course this is Exchanging Fire opinion and it sounds well explained, but as long as the producers will not give proves that their processes use are not similar to rayon/viscose, perplexities about Milk Fiber being eco-friendly will remain.

This story sounds too similar to what happened to Bamboo Fiber a couple of years ago. Now is clear that most of Bamboo Fiber out there is actually a Viscose, when will this be clear also for Milk Fiber?