"Fully sustainable"? I can't make it" - says Marten Laciny aka Marteria, but the rapper takes an important and good first step. Marteria launches fairly produced fashion collection made of recycled ocean plastic.
Musicians and influencers not only make merchandise, they can also be in sustainable fashion. Some have already proven this, but rapper Marteria is now moving with the times and one step further: With his label Green Berlin and the newly founded collection Back2Green, he not only produces his clothes fairly, but also exclusively from organic cotton and recycled ocean plastic. In addition, Marteria is now the first to present his production conditions and the entire path of his collection, from the ocean to the wardrobe, to the public in a specially produced documentary on YouTube.
Under the motto "There's only one Earth", the rapper wants to address his young audience in particular with his streetwear collection. The initially 17 pieces of his limited collection have been available in the Green Berlin Shop since February 21, 2020.
There's only one earth
Marteria has long been known in the rap scene as someone who, also in his lyrics, deals more with nature, climate and politics than many of his colleagues. After a health incident in spring 2015, he retreated to his home on the Baltic Sea, has since renounced alcohol and other drugs and lives close to nature, keeps animals, fishes. He comes from a family of fishermen and sees more and more plastic in the ocean. This is an acute problem, he also confirms in the documentation published by him. So he decided to make his new collection not only fair and organic, but also from polyester, which is made from 100% ocean plastic.
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Fishermen from Barcelona collect ocean plastic for the production
The organization "Sequal Initiative" cooperates with the fishermen in Barcelona and collects plastic from the Mediterranean Sea as a by-product of fishing. The production routes are kept short, the plastic is processed into yarn in Barcelona and woven into fabric not far away. Even the dyeing of the fabrics, which is still a major problem for a large part of the world's textile production, is done with environmentally friendly methods and biodegradable dyes.
Cotton, which is harvested and fairly traded in Antalya, Turkey, is in turn processed into fabric and directly into clothing in Istanbul. In the production of the cotton products, a conscious decision was made against the classic Fair Trade seal and in favour of the GOTS seal. This guarantees fair working conditions and wages as well as organic quality and climate friendliness.
Critical question: Can the plastic problem be solved with plastic clothing?
The crux of the matter is already revealed in the question: A permanent solution to the problem with plastic waste will hardly be achieved with new clothing made of polyester - not even from recycled polyester. In addition, there are microplastic fibres which are released during the production of the recycled material.
However, rapper Marteria and his team seem to be aware of this problem. "Fully sustainable"? I can't make it." But it was a first step. As a first step, the one you have taken is certainly a good one. In addition to the fact that recycled polyester is still far better than conventionally produced polyester, Marteria joins with GreenBerlin, its campaign and the associated YouTube documentation to draw the attention of many of its celebrity colleagues to the pressing problem.
A novelty: With YouTube documentation Marteria puts facts on the table and offers transparency for the production of his label
"BACK2GREEN - The documentation of the sustainable collection" is the title of the 20-minute YouTube film, which was uploaded to GreenBerlin's YouTube channel on February 21, when the collection was released. The documentary is not so much NDR Nordstory, but rather a youthful production, which at first glance shows that it wants to reach the young audience of the rapper. The neutral viewer may perceive a bit too much rap here and miss a certain density of information, but the documentary does its job and is of rarely seen transparency. In the commentaries there are more and more approving voices from the rapper's fan community and also the width of the audience seems to be certain, as the GreenBerlin Channel with more than 360tsd. subscribers a considerable range for a German fashion label.
"We are GreenBerlin. This is our first step."
Marteria is taking a very good step with its label. The statement, being the first, gives hope that further collections will follow and that the remaining problems will be addressed. So we should remain curious to see how GreenBerlin will continue!
