With the launch of our innovative new Leather Series comes the introduction of terms and concepts you may not be familiar with. Here we’ve explained everything you need to know to understand the impact of our floors, easy to read and jargon-free.
Aerobic Composting
The process of bacteria breaking down organic matter in the presence of oxygen. This produces a type of soil known as humus, which is nutrient-rich and excellent for plant health. Oxygen-thriving bacteria and fungi, as well as physical decomposers such as bugs and worms, move the process along.
Anaerobic Composting
The process of bacteria breaking down organic matter in the absence of oxygen. This process produces methane, a harmful greenhouse gas, and is often what happens in landfill.
Biodegradable
Anything that can be broken down and assimilate into the natural environment is biodegradable. Examples of biodegradable matter are food, plants, and living organisms like humans and animals. Some examples of things that are not biodegradable are plastics, metals, and glass. These things may break down into micro particles, but they won’t ever return to the Earth in their original state. Essentially, if bacteria can’t eat it, it won’t biodegrade.
Circular Economy
Borrow from the planet, give it back; this is the main principle of a circular economy. Everything in a circular economy is renewable, recyclable, and replenishable. The materials that make up Karta floors come from the Earth and return to it at the end of their life, nourishing the soil for the next growth of trees.
Compostable
Anything biodegradable is compostable! Items that can be composted biodegrade into non-toxic and natural elements, such as water, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. Composting requires bacteria, microorganisms, or physical decomposers such as bugs and worms.
Cutting Room Floor Waste
These are the materials left over during the manufacture of products – thread, fabrics, offcuts, or damaged goods. Karta’s new range of floors uses waste from the leather shoe industry, turning scrap into sustainable design.
Deadstock
This is any textile item that can’t be sold once it falls out of fashion. It happens more often than you think – an estimated 350,000 tonnes of deadstock goes to landfill un the UK every year. And it’s not just cheap t-shirts; fast fashion and designer brands alike contribute to that mammoth amount of textile waste.
Fabric
Fibres and yarns interlocked together to create a pliable and cuttable material. A fabric can be as thick as a knitted sweater or as light as a silk scarf.
Factory
A facility that manufactures goods. While a factory can be any size, most commonly they are working at a large scale and high-speed, mass-producing products to meet demand.
Fibre
A raw material that can be manipulated into yarns or threads. Sheep’s wool is a natural fibre, which gets made into woollen yarn; silk thread is made from the fibres of a silkworm’s cocoon.
Filament
In the context of textiles, a filament refers to a long, continuous length of fibre. Wool is not a filament fibre, as it is made up of individual hairs which are then spun together. Silk is the only natural filament fibre, meaning it’s the only long, continuous length of raw material found in nature. Cool!
Greenhouse Effect
Have you ever stepped into a greenhouse? Warm, isn’t it? Similarly, the Greenhouse Effect is the process of ‘greenhouse gases’ in the Earth’s atmosphere trapping heat beneath the surface. This leads to rising temperatures for us on the planet below.
You may remember chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, being used in the manufacture of refrigerators. This was phased out after their properties as greenhouse gases, and haven’t been found in fridges since the year 2000.
Some natural greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrogen oxide; these already existed in the atmosphere, but human pollution, including landfill, has raised their PPM (parts per million) to dangerous levels.
Hand Feel
How your textiles feel to the touch. Heavy or light? Smooth or rough?
Incineration
A more managed process of discarding waste than dumping it in landfill. Incinerators use controlled-flame combustion to burn away waste. While some airborne pollutants are still released with incineration, the majority of modern facilities capture the energy released during burning (ash, gas, and heat) to convert into useable energy. These facilities are known as waste-to-energy plants.
Industrial Textile Waste
Any waste that is found within a production facility (such as a factory). This is also known as pre-consumer waste, and can be anything from fibres to finished products.
Landfill
A method of ‘disposing’ of waste. Also known as a dump, landfill sites are often vast areas of land used for storing mounds of waste, both biodegradable and nonbiodegradable. The biodegradable waste located inside the mounds undergo anaerobic decomposition, which takes a long time and releases harmful greenhouse gases. The nonbiodegradable waste just sits there forever and ever.
Man-made Fibre
Also known as synthetic fibres. These are fibres not made from plants or animals, but from chemicals in a factory setting. Examples of man-made fibres are polyester, rayon, and acrylic. These are nonbiodegradable.
Material
In manufacturing, this refers to anything that is used to make something, whether it’s a fabric or metal.
Natural Fibre
A fibre that comes directly from nature. This includes plant fibres, such as hemp, flax, and jute; animal fibres, such as wool and silk; and mineral fibres, such as glass and metals – these mineral fibres are less likely to be used in textile production.
Non-Woven Fabrics
Fabrics created by interlocking or bonding fibres together. Examples of non-woven fabrics include carpet backing, surgical gowns, and medical wipes.
Organic Matter
Anything made from humans, plants, or animals. This includes things like manure, food waste, and hair. Organic matter is biodegradable.
Overstock
While deadstock means items that can’t be sold for more vague reasons, overstock occurs when brands deliberately over-purchase stock. This may be done to lower cost-per-item, or to have spares in case of stock loss or damage (also called shrinkage).
Post-Consumer Waste
This refers to any waste textiles after they have made it into stores, including deadstock, overstock, surplus, and discarded textiles.
Pre-Consumer Waste
This refers to textile waste found in factories and production facilities. This includes anything that can not or was not used for its intended purpose, such as cutting room floor waste and products that didn’t pass quality control.
Re-use, Reduce, Recycle
The famous trinity of sustainability, and principles that Karta embody every day in every floor.
- Re-using, also known as repurposing, involves taking materials that already exist and using them to create something new. Karta take leather and denim scraps from the textiles industry and turn them into beautiful real wood-look floors. You can re-ruse things in your everyday life, like ‘upcycling’ paint-splattered jeans into stylish shorts, or ‘downcycling’ a ripped t-shirt into cleaning rags.
- There’s a reason “reduce” is in the lineup, and that’s because reducing your pollution footprint is one of the best things you can do for the environment. This can be done by choosing higher-quality, multi-purpose items over single-use, single purpose alternatives. For example, buying a metal bottle that can be used for water, hot drinks, and juice over single-use plastic bottles. Karta floors are versatile, durable, and made to stand the test of time, meaning you won’t have to replace our floors for years to come and reducing the need for renovation.
- When you can’t re-use an item, nor can you reduce the amount you have to use, it’s time to find a way to recycle it. Glass is infinitely recyclable, able to be melted down and made into glass products over and over again. Karta floors are also recyclable, as they are made from biodegradable This means that the materials in our floors can be returned to the earth at the end of their lives, ready to nourish the next growth of trees and plants we use to make them.
Sample
Textile samples are often small swatches with no other purpose but to show an example of the colour, weight, and texture of the fabric to be used. A full finished product can also be made as a sample, which becomes waste when changes to the final design are needed.
Staple
This refers to the length of a raw fibre, such as the length of sheep’s wool before it is spun into yarn.
Surplus
Surplus is anything left over at the factory or retailer. This includes deadstock and overstock, as well as any extra products made because of overproduction or sampling.
Textile
This encompasses any fabric or cloth, as well as the yarns or fibres that make them up. Denim is a textile made from woven fibres, however leather is not, as it is made from animal skin.
Textile Discard
The unwanted textiles discarded from homes, factories, and retailers. These textiles can be anything from clothing to mattresses. They can be sent to charity shops an collection banks to be re-used, but are often sent to landfill.
Textile Waste
Any textile that has not met its intended purpose, and is seen as holding no value in the supply chain.
Understanding these textile terms empowers you to make informed, eco-friendly choices in your flooring selections. At Karta, we are dedicated to transforming waste into valuable resources, exemplified by our innovative Leather Series, which repurposes leather industry scraps into sustainable flooring solutions. By embracing such sustainable practices, we collectively contribute to a healthier planet. Explore our Leather Series to discover how style and sustainability can seamlessly merge in your space. Get in touch today for your free sample box.