The environmental cost of producing more cotton.
Cotton is a strong part of our everyday lives and not many people know how it is really grown and what the production of cotton truly costs to the environment.
Cotton fiber is grown on a plant of the gossypium genus, then it is cleaned and spun into the fabric we know so well. The largest producers of cotton are China, India and the US.
IS COTTON PRODUCTION BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT?
WATER.
The environmental impacts of cotton manufacture are heavy especially on water resources, which generates tremendous pressure and the statistics state that global cotton production requires over 250 billion tons of water annually. The disastrous events of the Aral Sea, one of the 4th largest lakes in the world is virtually non-existent mainly because of cotton cultivation. We therefore are using a great deal of water resources from around the world as a result of our consumption.
‘85% OF THE DAILY NEEDS IN WATER OF THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF INDIA WOULD BE COVERED BY THE WATER USED TO GROW COTTON IN THE COUNTRY.
100 MILLION PEOPLE IN INDIA DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO DRINKING WATER’
— Stephen Leahy, The Guardian
CHEMICALS.
Cotton is responsible for the use of 25% of the world’s insecticides and 18% of pesticides. That actually makes cotton production the number 1 consumer of pesticides in the world. That is a great amount of petrochemicals which are being poured into our soils, running into our waterways and affecting our environment. The World Health Organisation considers half of these chemicals to be hazardous to the environment and our health. Therefore the impact of cotton on the communities and ecosystems in the countries where it is grown is very concerning. it's believed that somewhere between 0.3% and 1% of global carbon emissions come from cotton production. The region around the Aral Sea suffers the highest rate of throat cancer in the world as a result of inhaling the polluted air. The rainwater in Brazil’s cotton region contained 19 different pesticides, 12 of which were common in cotton production. Cotton crops are very vulnerable to pests and so conventional cotton farming is reliant on lots of pesticides to ensure a good yield for the crop. This results in pesticides also being a huge financial burden for farmers.
WHAT ABOUT ORGANIC COTTON?
There are many reasons why organic cotton is better for the environment, for one It is more sustainable in the sense that it is not grown with heavy pesticides like that of conventional cotton. This results in the fabric being much safer to work with and to handle and therefore better for our environment. Certified organic cotton often means that the cotton was planted in places where heavy rain usually occurs so no irrigation is needed and that way the water consumption of the cotton becomes much less. It is important to look for international and third-party certifications like GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standards) which actually ensure that the correct measures have been made to improve the product.
HOW CAN WE CONSUME COTTON IN AN ECO CONSCIOUS WAY?
We can start by not buying fast fashion, one of the main reasons why there is such large demand for cotton is because the fast fashion industry produces around 100 billion pieces of clothing every single year, and 80% of it ends in landfill or in an incinerator, with only 20% of our clothes being reused and recycled. There are many ways in which we can grow cotton in a more environmentally friendly way, but I believe it to be vitally important to start this journey by prolonging the life cycle of the cotton already in circulation. Clothing has become disposable and as a result we generate more and more textile waste. We need to buy less, buy better quality, mend clothes and recycle, seeking to close the loop in the fashion system.