As a designer, you have probably specified down feather pillow inserts for your clients. There is nothing like a karate chopped pillow accenting a custom made sofa. Down feathers not only makes a luxurious pillow it is also a natural sustainable alternative to the cheap Poly/Dacron pillow inserts. To go even further, you may have even covered the pillow with an organic or recycled polyester fabric. But do you know where the feather/down pillow insert comes from and how the material is collected?
Over 80% of the world’s supply of down feathers comes from China, a country that as of 2012 had no animal cruelty laws. This is where over half of the down feathers are live plucked. This means the feathers are violently ripped off the live bird, often leaving it with open wounds. Once the birds are plucked, the feathers grow back in about a month; a bird can typically withstand three or four live pluckings a year.
A gaggle of geese display red raw bald patches in the aftermath of being ‘live-plucked’ for their down. The reason for this article is not just to inform the reader about this horrific act, but also to provide an alternative resource for feather down. When purchasing feather down for your projects you can ask for “traceable down”. Suppliers can get their products certified by the NSF International under their Global Traceable Down Standard. This certification enables an organization to demonstrate how the down it processes is from farms that practice the highest levels of animal welfare and that the down is fully traceable throughout its supply chain.
NSF’s Global Traceable Down Standard starts at the hatchery, and extends animal welfare procedures to parent farms where animals typically live for at least four years and would be at greatest risk for live plucking.
The down feather pillow inserts offered by Decorating with Fabricis from a supplier certified by the NSF. You can rest assured that no harm has come to the birds who supply the down feather inserts when you order your custom pillows or shams from Decorating with Fabric.
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