Environment—Love it, protect it, and use it wisely.
HISTORY OF COTTON
In a large world where 25% of its body is land and 75% is water, there is not really much land left for farming. There are environmental barriers like mountains, forests, swamps and so on that decreases the amount of farming land available. From the land actually left for farming, 2.4 percent is used on cotton crops. “Cotton is a native crop of South Africa and North America and is produced in more than 80 countries world-wide, grown on more than 90 million acres of the world.” Cotton is known as the top best selling fabric in the world since it is believed to be a natural fabric that is soft, comfortable and safe to wear. The fact is that cotton has softness and comfort, but yet technically is not very safe to wear. “Did you know that the production of conventionally grown cotton uses 24% of the world’s insecticides and 11% of global pesticides sales, making it the most pesticide-intensive crop grown on the planet?” Using large amounts of pesticides to destroy crop insects also decimates the population of insects like lady bugs and wasps that are resourceful for studies and other products. Cotton is being constantly sprayed to kill insects and other things that harm its growth; however a discovery has been made that 500 insect species, 180 weeds and 150 different types of fungi were found to be unaffected by insecticides used on cotton crops.
CONTAMINATION OF COTTON
With the environmental issues around the world like global warming and shortage in potable water, cotton farming does not give benefits for either of these issues. Since cotton uses a high percent of the world’s insecticides, it causes contamination to ground water, surface water and water used for drinking, causing diseases and death to both humans and animals. Cotton insecticides are harmful to humans through contamination of waters, through inhaling during the cotton production, and also by wearing cotton products. Cotton field workers exposed to insecticides suffer from poison, extremely high health risk, and sometimes death. “World Health Organization estimates that at least three million people are poisoned by pesticides every year and 20-40,000 more are killed.” Chemicals typically used to kill insects and to manufacture the cotton crop into fabric are known as cancer causing chemicals. Conventionally, grown cotton is tested on color, strength, and length, yet not really tested on safety of the product put out to the public.
PROCESS OF HARVESTING COTTON
Before cotton becomes a fabric usable for production of clothing it goes through several steps. When cotton is fully harvested and ready to start the manufacturing process it is cut from the fields and taken into the cotton gin where the seed is removed for the cotton. The cotton seed can be used for another harvest of cotton, can be fed to livestock, or can be processed into cottonseed oil for foodservice production. Once cotton seed is removed and cotton is cleaned and tested, it is made into large bulks of cotton and sent to textile mills.
PRODUCING COTTON FABRIC
In textile mills the cotton fibers are processed into fabrics using chemicals and various methods; when made into fabric, cotton is either made into woven or knitted fabric. When cotton has gone through the textile mill it is usually sent to a country or region with low wages to be used for garment making. The dyeing of cotton can be done before fiber is made into a fabric, after it is made into a fabric, or at the making of the final garment. In order to get rid of most chemicals the cotton crop is sprayed several times with bleach and with other chemicals to make it a safer fabric. The cotton is run through various toxic chemicals, oils and waxes when converting the cotton fiber into fabric. Detergents and softeners are used to get rid of bad chemicals. After many washing cycles, bleaching processes and softeners are added to enhance and kill all chemicals left; fabric still contains chemicals that are not able to be destroyed in the process. Fabric is then made into a garment and then sold in stores. Chemical sensitive people detect unsafe fabrics, but others just live without knowing the harmfulness of conventionally grown cotton fabrics. Take a moment and think, it doesn’t only harm humans, but it also harms the Earth.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_6347.cfm
