Certification of the quality〜KAWADA DOWN and GREEN DOWN

Quality of the Down & FeatherKAWADA DOWN and GREEN DOWN

As a down & feather manufacture, we believe our most important mission is to pursue the high quality of down & feather.

We do our best to process clean and healthy down & feather with our continuous experience, unique technic, the suitable environment for down processing, and super soft water for down washing. We also try our best to produce such down & feather in the same level of food control.

KAWADA FEATHER has two original brands, “KAWADA DOWN WORLD PREMIUM” and “GREEN DOWN,” to prove the safe, secure and clean down & feather. Firstly, “KAWADA DOWN WORLD PREMIUM” represents the virgin down & feather. Secondly, “GREEN DOWN” represents the recycled down & feather.

KAWADA DOWN
Original brand for virgin down

グリーンダウンロゴ — **GREEN DOWN**
Recycled down originated from used down

New(virgin) and recycled Down & Feather

Raw down & feather is a natural by-product from waterfowls for food. This down & feather after processing and cleaning is called the “Virgin Down & Feather.”

On the other hand, we collect down & feather products like down comforters or down jackets, and take out the down & feather from such products.
This down & feather after processing is called the ”Recycled Down & Feather.”

All of our down & feather stock is fully processed in our factory. We remove dust and dander from the down & feather completely in the suitable environment by processing, and washing it with super soft and fine water. Such down & feather is very high quality, and highly safe and secure for use.

“KAWADA DOWN”

“KAWADA DOWN” is a 100% virgin down.
We purchase the selected raw down & feather and process it in our domestic factory, and then inspect the processed down & feather with severe quality tests. We guarantee only such special down & feather as “KAWADA DOWN.” This brand was created with our original and unique technology, knowledge, and mission.

Meaning of the original brand

We made our original brand because we want to inform our customers that our down & feather has the reliable quality that is far better than others. This reason was a big change in the down & feather market.

Meat market and Down & Feather

We can collect down & feather from meat business for waterfowls. Recently, short-breed waterfowls are increased and become main current of the world. When concentration of the cheap price meat becomes more, quality of the meat decreases more.

When short-breed meat is produced, the quality of down & feather as a by-product decreases. Even such situation, we carefully select and purchase high quality of down & feather from long-term reared waterfowls in France, Taiwan and so on.

What we can do

As a down & feather manufacture, we want all of you to use down & feather products made of high quality down & feather because recently poor quality down & feather is mixed into the products.

For an example, used down & feather is mixed, damaged down & feather is not removed, or dirty down & feather is filled in the products. What’s more, the processed down that quality camouflaged by drugs started from the year of 2014 and increased rapidly from the year of 2017.

Generally, appropriately processed down & feather has little smell because it is very clean and beautiful material compared with other fibers. If customers recognize this fact, they will not purchase or use products made of poor down & feather. So, as described above, we make our original brand to prove that each of us produces our products with our pride and responsibility as professional of processing down & feather.

GREEN DOWN

Old or useless down comforters or down jackets are disposed as wastes. Down & feather looks soft and fluffy, but can be used more than 100 years without change because of its durability.

Therefore, we started recycling down & feather from hotels in 1983. Nowadays, the only successful recyclable feather & down in the world is our green down.

Down & feather is the recyclable resource to be used repeatedly if washed properly. Now, “down & feather can be recycled” is well-known publicly because our interests are increased in environment and resource protection.

In Kawada Feather, we collect used down products, open them to take out down & feather, and then wash it properly. Through appropriate processing, down & feather will regain the original function like heat-retention.

We call such processed clean down & feather as recycling down & feather (GREEN DOWN). The used down & feather is washed through the same steps as virgin down & feather. This recycling down & feather needs to pass even higher standard quality test than virgin down & feather. After these processes, it reborn as new down & feather products. So, “GREEN DOWN” is the recycling resource.

Characteristic and quality of GREEN DOWN

グリーンダウンタグ

“GREEN DOWN” attracts the public attention due to the earth-friendly project.

For an example, if down comforters are recycled instead of being burnt, the CO2 emission going into the atmosphere can be decreased. We refrain about 1.8kg of the CO2 emission against 1 kg of down & feather into the atmosphere. Decreasing the CO2 is good for the environment. Therefore, we hope more people can start to use “GREEN DOWN”.

If we replace our down comforters every 10 or 20 years, the raw material used for disposed down comforters is believed as higher quality down & feather collected from waterfowls reared much longer than the current waterfowls.

There are products made of higher quality of down & feather gathered from water-fowls of some decades ago. Down & feather in such products are collected, then washed to recovery the function. Such down & feather reborn as the recycling resource that can be used repeatedly.

Also, if it becomes difficult to sustainably supply water-fowls for food because of the change of our natural environment like bird flu virus, “GREEN DOWN” can be used continuously. So, GREEN DOWN starts to attract the public interest.

There are two reasons to prove why “GREEN DOWN” is clean and sterilized down & feather.
Firstly, we set much severer quality criterion to evaluate “GREEN DOWN” than virgin down & feather.

For example, we have (the Turbidity Test) to estimate the cleanness of water used for washing down & feather with the clear transparency meter. Our criterion is more than 3,000 mm which is three times higher than the virgin down standard (1,000 mm).

Secondly, based on our unique theory, we use the special washing technology and natural hydrogen water to wash the down & feather.

The natural hydrogen water used for washing feather & down has the reducing power of recovering. When touching them, we can feel the difference between unwashed down & feather collected from down & feather products and processed one.

After washing down & feather with our unique technology and natural hydrogen water, they can return to their original shape and function, which means down & feather recovers the function of the heat-retention and moisture absorption& desorption, and then reborn as fluffy as new one.

GREEN DOWN Project

In 2018, we transfer the patent of “GREEN DOWN” trademark to Green Down Project. We have been working on the recycling of down & feather resources as a member of Green Down Project (the General Incorporated Association), which established by domestic bedding manufactures and apparel companies.

Recycling the down & feather has following steps. First, we collect down & feather products from general users, then, we take out down & feather from these products, and process it. Finally, new products made from recycled down & feather (GREEN DOWN) will be sold on the shops. Definitely we cannot recycle down & feather only by ourselves.

Many companies are working on this project because we strongly hope if we recycle down & feather which is the natural by-product collected from waterfowls, we can transmit it to the next generation.

A down circulation society

The purpose of Green Down Project

The purpose of Green Down Project, which established in April 2015, is to inform the public down & feather can be recycled. Recycling the down & feather connects to both social contribution and environmental protection.
Green Down Project

Think resources

Down & feather is a by-product of waterfowl for food industry. Especially since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the demand for cheap meat has increased, which has caused long-rearing water-flow limited in only gourmet countries. This is why good quality down & feather decreases year by year.

Moreover, due to the change of the natural environment, bird influenza started, causing the amount of waterfowls less than before. On the other hand, the demand of down & feather increased dramatically in developing counties.

To keep the stability of the demand and supply balance of global down & feather, it is very urgent to recycle the large amount of down & feather as recyclable resource. We believe this recycle system secures the high quality of down & feather resource for the future.

Think our environment

If we throw away down & feather products, most of them are incinerated.

50％ of waterfowl down & feather consists of carbon, if incinerated, it emits lots of CO2.

Generally, if we incinerate 1kg of down & feather, it emits about 1.8kg of CO2 into the atmosphere.

The recyclable system of down & feather can decrease CO2 emissions into the atmosphere and is an earth-friendly project.

Think employment

We consign the cutting open operation of collected down & feather products to “Arinko,” the employment support organization for people with disabilities in Meiwa Cho, Mie Prefecture. Members of Arinko set the recyclable down comforter into the processing machine one by one, cut to open the comfort quilts, and collect down & feather from it. If we can collect more down & feather products, we can secure and keep the disabled people working stably. Besides, we are now cooperating with “Sugina”, the employment support organization for people with disabilities in Nagoya city. We are also searching for cooperative organizations in Kanto area.

OEKO-TEX® Standard

KAWADA Feather acquires “OEKO-TEX® Standard 100, Product Class I” certified by the Nissenken Quality Evaluation Center for our brands like “KAWADA DOWN,” ”GREEN DOWN,” and “Nano-Crystal”.

We process down & feather certified by the inspection authority OEKO-TEX®, which certifies the safety, security, and health of products made of intermediate materials.

This standard aims to eliminate from harmful substances that can affect human bodies and certifies that these textile products are safe and secure. This is because the test authentication system that applied to general textile products, inspects harmful substances included in textile products under world top-class standards.
This evaluation criteria is classified into four classes, and we acquired “Product Class I,” which is the strictest standard. So, it is totally safe even for babies touching these products with their sensitive skin.