Cotton being a vegetable fibre will be bleached using an oxidizing agent, such as dilute sodium hypochlorite or dilute hydrogen peroxide.

Natural vegetable fibres include cotton, linen, jute and hemp.

These vegetable fibres can come from the seed (cotton), the stem (known as bast fibres: flax, hemp, jute) or the leaf (sisal).

The majority of everyday objects would have been made from organic materials such as wood, bamboo, rattan and vegetable fibres which do not survive long in a tropical environment.

Retting was carried out here in ponds next to the river, this process being a stage in the manufacturing of vegetable fibres, especially the bast fibres.