#Raw Materials

2022-08-11

The ICAC will give away $9,000 in multiple World Cotton Day contests

With two months to go until 7 October, the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) has announced that it will hold a number of contests to celebrate World Cotton Day, totalling $9,000 in prize money. There will be six contests, with each awarding the winner $1,000 and the runner-up $500.

Four of them will be held on Twitter; winners will be those whose tweets get the most points (1 point for each like and 3 points for each retweet) for tweets sent between 1 September and 6 October, with the winners announced on World Cotton Day. Each tweet must include three hashtags — #worldcottonday; #ICAC_Cotton; #cottonforgood (the official theme of World Cotton Day) — as well as a fourth that indicates which contest the tweet is for:

1. #cotton: Tweets about the cotton plant, including the raw fibre.

2. #madewithcotton: Tweets about products made from cotton.

3. #sustainablecotton: Tweets about some aspect of cotton’s sustainability.

4. #cottonresearch: Tweets about the science of cotton.

In addition, two contests will be held at the World Cotton Research Conference, which begins on 4 October in Cairo and concludes on World Cotton Day:

1. Best live presentation, and

2. Best poster.

‘Because cotton alleviates poverty in many of the world’s least-developed countries and helps fight climate change globally, the more visibility cotton gets on 7 October, the better’, said Kai Hughes, ICAC Executive Director. ‘We want to motivate people to spread the good word about cotton with the Twitter contests, and want to reward the scientists whose research is the lifeblood of the cotton industry’s development at the World Cotton Research Conference’.

For more information about the ICAC’s World Cotton Day contests, and see an example of a tweet for the #madewithcotton contest, please click here:

https://www.worldcottonday.com/location/international-cotton-advisory-committee-icac-2/

Organic cotton at the crossroads: Ideology, evidence, and the road ahead

Organic cotton occupies one of the most contentious spaces in global agriculture. While praised by brands and consumers for its environmental ideals, it also faces persistent questions about yield stability, certification integrity, and scalability. The current edition of The ICAC Recorder cuts through the ideology to deliver a rigorous, evidence-based assessment of both sides of the debate.

Dr N Vigneshwaran is named 2026 ICAC Researcher of the Year

The International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) is pleased to announce the selection of Dr N Vigneshwaran, Principal Scientist and Head of the Chemical and Biochemical Processing Division at the ICAR–Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology (ICAR-CIRCOT), Mumbai, India, as the ICAC Researcher of the Year 2026.

AMSilk and Ajinomoto Foods Europe expand partnership to enable industrial-scale production of silk proteins

AMSilk GmbH (“AMSilk”), a global leader leader in biotech produced silk materials, today announced a significant expansion of its partnership with Ajinomoto Foods Europe (AFE), marking a key step in scaling the industrial production of its silk proteins. Building on the collaboration first established in 2023, the two companies have now entered into a long-term manufacturing and supply agreement, enabling the transition from industrial validation to dedicated, large-scale production.

Cotton made in Africa partners receive top marks in independent verifications

Cotton made in Africa® (CmiA) and CmiA Organic are two internationally recognised standards that aim to promote sustainable development in the African cotton sector south of the Sahara. To ensure the standards’ credibility among brands, retailers, and consumers, independent verifiers evaluate compliance on the ground. The verification results for 2025, now published in the Aggregated Verification & Implementation Report, were very strong: The verifiers awarded consistently very good remarks regarding management, people, prosperity, and the environment.

Cotton ConneXions Insight to Impact brings supply chain leaders together around cotton innovation

Cotton Incorporated’s Cotton ConneXions Insight to Impact brought together more than 300 industry leaders from 140 companies across 10 countries, including more than 45 top global brands and sourcing organizations, underscoring strong global interest in cotton-rich product development, sourcing and supply chain collaboration.

Bremen Cotton Exchange: Fritz A. Grobien re-elected as President

The members of the Bremen Cotton Exchange have re-elected Fritz A. Grobien as President during the association’s 152nd General Assembly on June 18, 2026. The election confirms the organization’s commitment to maintaining its role as a leading international platform for the cotton and fiber industry amid a period of geopolitical and economic uncertainty.

Ence and ShareTex begin initial testing of the ATENEA innovation project to promote textile recycling in Spain

Ence and ShareTex are making progress on the Atenea R&D project, which aims to develop a complete value chain for textile recycling in Spain. Specifically, the goal of the ATENEA project—which is funded by the Center for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI)—is to connect all the necessary stages for the recovery of textile waste, from collection and management, through recycling and transformation into new raw materials, to their incorporation into new textile products.

DePoly Inaugurates its Showcase Plant in Monthey Switzerland

What if used plastic bottles, PET packaging material and polyester textiles could become raw materials just as high performing as virgin resources? That is the ambition of DePoly, a circular materials company based in Sion, Switzerland which inaugurated its Showcase Plant in Monthey on July 6th & 7th. The first depolymerization facility of its kind and scale in Switzerland, this industrial Showcase Plant represents a major milestone in the company's growth and its journey toward commercialization.

Commission clarifies rules on plastic bottles recycling

The European Commission today adopted new rules on recycling of single-use plastic beverage bottles made primarily of polyethylene terephthalate (PET bottles). These rules establish, for the first time, a methodology to calculate, verify and report chemically recycled content. This is part of the Commission’s December 2025 plastics package.