Cotton production and the challenge of reduced consumption and reuse

Human race is changing nature on a global scale. How much can we take before nature breaks down, before the world, as we know it, ceases to exist?

Among many challenges we face, from food security, water shortages, preservation of biodiversity, to the CO2 emissions, is the heavy use of pesticides.

Pesticides are a global environmental problem. Approximately 20,000 people die from poisoning every year, ground, surface water and soil contamination and ambient pollution.

The mainstream production of cotton, currently, uses the same weight of pesticides and fertilizers per t-shirt as the weight of the t-shirt itself! (Cotton producers account for 25% of the worlds agricultural insecticides and herbicides) 925 gallons of water are used on the production of one lbs. of cotton!

Organic cotton addresses some of these concerns, but it does not address the excessive use of water.

The average American consumes an average of 70lbs of clothes; household and shoes a year, of those and average of 60lbs per inhabitant are discarded.

Reducing our consumption of cotton products and reusing are a step towards the reduction of the environmental impacts of cotton production today. 

Related articles

• Why Organic Cotton is Better (alchemicgorilla.com)
• Pesticide residues in cotton fibers (oecotextiles.wordpress.com)