International Textile Manufacturers' Federation's (ITMF) released the cotton contamination survey for 2005.
Though cotton contamination has fallen from 26 percent in '03 to 22 percent in the current year, foreign matter, stickiness and seed coat fragments in raw cotton continue to be a serious problem affecting the spinning industry worldwide.
Major spoilers include fabric made out of cotton, strings made of woven plastic, plastic film, and sand and dust. While most contaminated cotton originates from Turkey, India, Paraguay, Nigeria, Syria and Central Asia, clean cotton is found in the US, Israel, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Togo and Australia.
The survey revealed that 17% of cotton evaluated showed stickiness, which is significantly lower than the 21% reported in '03. There has also been a marked improvement in the appearance of seed coat fragments. Appearance of seed coat fragment dropped to 37% from 44% in '03. Cotton originated from Nigeria, India, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan was the most affected by this trend.
Cotton from Zimbabwe, Paraguay, Ivory Coast, US, Egypt, Australia, China and Israel had least prevalence of seed coat fragments. Contamination levels have fallen for the first time since 1997, the survey said. Reduction in the level of contamination is on three counts: serious, moderate and least or insignificant contamination.
Of all cases of cotton assessed, 7% was seriously contaminated by 16 different sources of foreign matter against 8% for '03. As the level of moderate contamination fell to 15% from 18%, it resulted in the least/insignificant contaminated cottons rising to 78% from 74%, the survey stated.
The ninth edition of the ITMF survey covered 68 cotton varieties used by 152 spinning mills in 18 countries.
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