Is Kapok Sustainable? What Wild Harvested Actually Means

Our material choices start with a seed pod and organic cotton fabric. MAREA uses wild harvested kapok fill, a GOTS certified organic cotton sateen shell and a zipper that lets you adjust and refill the pillow. Those are the choices behind a pillow worth keeping.

Where kapok comes from

Kapok is the soft fiber around the seeds inside ceiba pods. The pods are gathered and the tree keeps standing, producing again season after season. Our fill is wild harvested in Indonesia, from trees that grow without being planted as a farmed crop. CIFOR describes the tree and its uses.

Why choose a plant based fill?

Kapok gives you a pillow fill from a plant rather than animal down or foam. If that's the direction you want to take your bedroom, you can make the switch and still shape your pillow and change its height.

Down is animal derived. If you're shopping down, Textile Exchange's Responsible Down Standard is the certification to look for. Kapok sidesteps that question entirely. See what the Responsible Down Standard covers.

Why organic cotton matters to us

We chose organic cotton sateen for the fabric around the fill and for the removable cover. GOTS describes organic fiber production as excluding synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and genetically modified organisms. That makes organic cotton a meaningful farming choice, not just a description of how soft a fabric feels. Read GOTS's explanation of organic fibers.

The pillow shell and our separate pillow cover are the same organic cotton sateen, and both are GOTS certified (Oregon Tilth, license GOTS-10229). Here's what GOTS covers.

Wild harvested and organic cotton, each named for what it is

Wild harvested describes where and how a fiber is gathered: from standing trees, not a planted field. Organic describes how our cotton was grown. We say "wild harvested kapok" and "organic cotton fabric" so each material gets its own accurate name.

A pillow built to stay in use

The zipper gives you access to the fill. You can save fiber you remove, redistribute it when it shifts, and add fresh kapok when you want more height. The separate washable cover handles routine laundering while the filled pillow stays dry. Instead of replacing a flattened pillow, you top it off. See the care instructions.

The choice you can make today

Choose plant based kapok fill, organic cotton fabric and a pillow you can adjust and refill. Start with the MAREA pillow, or explore the history of this traditional fiber.

Anthony
Founder, MAREA Sleep

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