Bob Crebas still introduces himself as "an old hippy". But these days it's not recycled washing machines and bric-a-brac that the Dutchman trades in. He has swapped all this for fashion collections made from stinging nettles, designed and produced by his fast-growing business Brennels.nl.
Four years ago, Crebas and his business partner were selling second-hand wares through a trading website called Marktplaats.nl when they were approached by eBay, the hugely successful auction website, and made the kind of offer you can't refuse. The American firm bought out Marktplaats.nl for €225m (£170m), instantly pushing Crebas and his partner halfway up the list of Holland's 500 richest people. But Crebas had no interest in upgrading his home or car: "Suddenly, I was in a position to put my money where my mouth is and make real my vision of doing something that would have a positive impact on the environment."
So, once the family celebration with pizza and beer was over, Crebas and his wife, Carla, started researching what practices were the most damaging to the environment. They found that the cultivation of the enormous quantities of cotton used by the fashion industry - much loved because it appears to be "pure and natural" - is responsible for 25% of all insecticides and 11% of pesticides used globally, causing massive pollution and the deaths of thousands of people who cultivate the crops without protection. Nor is growing enough organic cotton to satisfy the demands of the clothing industry a viable alternative, says Crebas; it cannot be done in enough quantity on the land available - and if more land is made available it leads to logging and the use of agricultural land.
As he mulled over this dilemma, he learned that stinging nettles had been used in medieval times and more recently in both world wars, when other crops were scarce, to make clothing, but had since long fallen out of favour. Further investigation led him to discover that research was already under way into the use of nettles for textiles. For example, the Sustainable Technology in Nettle Growing (Sting) project funded by Defra at Leicester's De Montfort University - which is now doing some work for Crebas - has succeeded in extracting a silky thread that is stronger and finer than from other plants such as hemp. Also, an EU-funded project (known as FAIR-CT98-9615) has been working with textile companies in Austria, Germany and Italy to evolve methods of extracting fibre from nettles, as well as the spinning, weaving and manufacturing of such textiles.
"I just wanted to demonstrate that nettles can be a viable alternative to cotton and other textiles that are harmful to the environment," says Crebas. In 2006, working with one of his sons, Frank, he planted 33 hectares of the common stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) on the land where they live and work in Emmelord, in Holland's north-east Polder region. Today, this has grown to 80 hectares. They also have five hectares of nettles growing in both the Czech Republic and Lithuania.
The day I visited, father and son were strutting the winter-hardened soil where the nettles were beginning their growth towards a height ready for harvesting. This would be followed by the tricky process of drying them before tying them into bales ready to be sent for processing into a textile.
"It's not all been simple," says Crebas. "There's a lot of lime in our soil and weeds grew between the nettles we were using.
Nor do the plants always drain well enough. And there was a lot of making fun of us by neighbours who spend their time getting rid of stinging nettles." But he has found a company in Germany that has cultivated a particularly hardy high-fibre nettle clone, which is also being grown experimentally on sites in Leicestershire and Cornwall. Crebas now imports these to grow himself.
Ellen Atema, who oversees the technical work for Brennels, explains that the thread, which is later spun and woven, is extracted from nettle stems that are crushed or broken. The process is still in its infancy and Brennels is trying to develop a machine to strip out the delicate threads without damaging them. It is also investigating dyeing and rinsing methods that avoid having to pollute water.
"The next step was creating our own fashion range," says Crebas. "This was something I knew nothing about, but Carla was running a clothes business and knew designers." They employed award-winning designer Rianne de Witte, known for her interest in sustainable fabrics - "clean chique", as the company call it - to create a collection of easy-to-wear classic styles. These can be seen on the website (www.brennels.nl) and at the shop it has opened in Arnhem. At present, nettle thread is mixed with bamboo and some organic cotton because they cannot yet grow enough pure nettle, but that is their goal.
"I see nettles as a crop that can transform life for those growing textile crops in the developing world," says Crebas. "Nettles grow on the most inhospitable land, ground that has been overused with chemicals, but their cultivation uses a very small amount - if any - of pesticide. And because the processes for making it into a really attractive fabric are developing all the time, there's no reason why it shouldn't be a viable, and far more environmentally sustainable, alternative to conventional cotton."
Crebas does not expect to make a profit for some years, but is content with that. "I am happy living the same life I did as a hippy. Any money we make is for the Brennels project." Then he laughs. "But you never know, I could have hit on the biggest new idea and be rich all over again in the future."
