Sustainability in Baby Dreamer

CHOICE OF MATERIALS

In Baby Dreamer, I am constantly looking for new and more environmentally optimized materials that are suitable for the diaper bag. Each material has its advantages and disadvantages, which I weigh against each other when making the best possible choice. There is no easy solution to the most sustainable diaper bag.

A diaper bag must go through extreme pressure in wear and stress tests. Therefore, it has been the first priority to choose a strong material that can stand the test. We cannot avoid the fact that polyester is just a super strong material and that is why I have chosen, for example, to produce recycled polyester in the material.

Advantages of recycled polyester:

• extremely durable and durable for many years to come
• recycled polyester emits 75% less CO2 than the raw material polyester
• The fabric can be reused continuously without quality deterioration, which cannot be done with cotton
• several 100,000 tons of textiles are sent for incineration every year. A huge resource that is better utilized by being converted into recycled polyester instead of cultivating new land for cotton fields or making even more polyester from scratch

The cork material

Another material I have chosen to include in my range, the "luxury material" cork. The material is most often compared to leather, but has so many better advantages, I think. The dream goal is to make a bag that is 100% biodegradable, so I feel one step closer to the goal with a material that actually comes from a tree and the cooking material itself is 100% biodegradable. How the cork material is made The cork material is harvested from the cork oak tree, a tree that grows primarily in Spain, Portugal, France and Africa. When the cork tree is 20 years old, the bark is harvested from the tree with machetes. The tree is then marked with a number, so that it will not be harvested again until 10 years later. Compared to other trees, the cork oak tree is the only tree in the world that can have its bark removed and live on. This makes harvesting the wood 100% sustainable. In fact, the cork oak tree can be harvested every 10 years for over 200 years! When the cork bark lands at the factory, it is cooked so that the cork cells expand and thereby become easier to work with. There are no toxic chemicals used in this process such as formaldehyde. It is then shaved down to very thin pieces. To make the cork material strong, the pieces of cork are glued to a backing of e.g. cotton or recycled polyester material. In fact, the cork harvest can help against global warming. How? As the cork grows, the tree captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Not only that, every time the cork bark is harvested the tree actually absorbs even more CO2 to regenerate its bark. This means that an even harvest of the cork tree absorbs 3-5 times more CO2 than the trees that are not harvested.

Advantages of the cork material:

• the cork harvest helps against global warming
• beautiful vegan alternative to leather
• natural antibacterial property
• naturally water repellent
• strong material
• 100% biodegradable and vegan
• silky smooth and warm to the touch
• light material

PRODUCER

Based on various parameters, I have ended up choosing China as the country of manufacture. Why then?

• in terms of energy, it is better to have a container sailed from China to Denmark than to have production run from southern Europe to Denmark
• I experienced the greatest knowledge and experience in manufacturing a durable backpack from China than my previous European manufacturers
• I found that all the raw materials used in European production came from China anyway. Therefore, I save a transport link by keeping the production in China, as well as more options in material selection.