Cotton - it's an ethical minefield
Baobab Avenue is all about empowering your fine an’ lovely selves with the info you need to make conscious choices about the clothes you adorn your beautiful bods with. So we’re gonna delve into cotton - a natural fabric which has been knocking about for centuries - all delightful surely? Sadly not.
Possibly this is partially due to the scale of things… in 5000BC there were a lot less folks plodding about the planet needing cotton clothes. Now there are billions of us and we’re going through threads at an alarming rate. The stats of fabric discarded in landfill is horrifying (but that’s a whole other blog post!)
Like all things there’s the good, the bad and the ugly. Cotton supports around 100 million rural families across the globe. It provides employment and income, and is the mainstay of the economies of some of the poorest countries in the world. It’s the world’s largest non-food crop, grown for trade by more than 80 countries. However, production is concentrated in just six – China, India, Australia, Brazil, the USA and Pakistan – combined they produce around 80% of all cotton and cotton comes with some huge issues. It’s been associated with everything from the horrific forced and child labour to environmental pollution and pesticide poisoning of farmers and their families.
It’s not all awful news however - organic cotton is turning things around - not just in protecting our beautiful planet but also the people who work in the cotton industry from field to factory. So don’t get down, get informed! Read the article, click on the hyperlinks for source info and if you have any questions or queries get it touch with us. We’re here to empower you with knowledge to make conscious, considered decisions regarding the clothes you buy. Baobab Avenue has a selection of stunning organic fair-trade cotton clothes you can don in good conscience - look out for these symbols when you’re shopping.
The good!
Organic cotton!
Hope comes in the form of organic and fair trade cotton which is being grown in increasing quantities in an increasing number of countries around the world. BUT to give you a sense of the reality of the situation organic cotton only makes up 0.7% of global cotton production. We have a vast way to go - but every step in the right direction helps. Every time one conscious being chooses to purchase organic cotton over regular cotton, it makes a difference.
Organic cotton is grown using methods which have a low impact on the environment. The systems replenish and maintain soil fertility and build biological diverse agriculture. This is partially because farmers use crop rotation, but also moisture is retained in the soil from the use of organic matter. This healthy soil encourages a natural balance attracting beneficial insects and farmers use trap crops to manage weed control and pest control - opposed to the standard use of insecticides and pesticides with normal cotton. Organic cotton doesn’t consume as much water as normal cotton crops because it doesn’t involve chemicals in its production.
Organic cotton is also fair trade. This guarantees workers’ rights and working conditions based on the International Labour Organisation conventions. These cover minimum wages, working hours, child labour, freedom of association to ensure safe, healthy, non-abusive, non-discriminatory working environments with living wages.
Organic cotton is grown using seeds which are natural and untreated - in contrast to normal cotton which uses seeds which are treated with fungicides, insecticides or are genetically modified. The organic seeds are also cheaper than the genetically modified seeds, helping farmers extract themselves from cycles of debt and poverty.
Organic cotton ensures that the soil remains fertile and healthy through crop rotation and the use of organic matter. There’s a stark difference to normal cotton which utilises synthetic fertilisers, intensive irrigation and leeches the soil of nutrients due to mono-crop culture.
Organic cotton is harvested using natural defoliation from freezing temperatures or through water (as opposed to the toxic chemicals used in standard cotton. Transforming the organic cotton into usable fibres is accomplished using double-plying or a non-toxic corn-starch, where toxic waxes are used on normal cotton.
Even the whitening of organic cotton is done using a safe peroxide, whilst chlorine bleaching is used on regular cotton, creating toxic by-products which are released into the environment. Organic cotton is dyed using low-impact, fibre-reactive or natural dyes with low metal and supra content, unlike normal cotton which is dyed at high temperature using heavy metals and sulphur. Organic cotton is printed using low-impact, water-based inks and pigments, whilst conventional cotton is printed using petroleum based pigments which contain heavy metals, causing pollution in the waterways and streams the run-off spills into.
The organic cotton is finished in warm water with a soft scour of soda ash with a PH of 7.5-8 in contrast to the hot water, synthetic surfactants and chemicals (even formaldehyde at times) used to finish non-organic cotton.
Fair Trade Cotton
Fair trade cotton provides a safety net to farmers - with a guaranteed minimum price which is paid to farmers even if market prices fall below a sustainable level. Fair trade also stipulates that there’s no use of genetically modified seeds, no forced or child labour, no discrimination and minimised pesticide use.
Recycled Cotton
Recycled cotton also should be mentioned at this point! Recycled cotton consumes less water, avoids landfills, avoids the introduction of more pesticides or genetically modified seeds in cotton farming
In 2018 thirty six major brands pledged to use 100% sustainable cotton by 2025 - so things are sluggishly shifting in the right direction. Whilst we wait for other fashion houses to catch up Baobab Avenue has collected a quality selection of ethical and sustainable brands for you to shop from, confident that they are looking after our fragile planet and all the peeps involved in the process of making your beautiful clothes.
If you’re after more context and understanding about standard cotton in contrast to organic cotton - read on, but be warned it’s pretty depressing.
The bad
Conventional cotton & the environment
Cotton is a gaspingly thirsty crop. Consuming vast quantities of water it’s pretty shocking to learn that 57% of global cotton production occurs in areas already under high or extreme water stress! Only 30% comes from ‘rain-fed’ farming, the rest relies mainly on wasteful flood irrigation. The Aral Sea in Central Asia depressingly demonstrates the impact of such stress, it has shrunk to just 10% of its former voluptuous volume, due to decades of diverting water (chiefly to irrigate cotton farms) and drought. It takes 2,700 litres of water to make one T-shirt which is enough for one person to drink over 900 days.
We need to be conscious that when we buy regular cotton we’re also consuming litres of “virtual water” this might sound strange, but think about it this way: in India 100 million people don’t have access to safe drinking water. Also in India, the water used to produce cotton could provide 85% of the country’s 1.24 billion people with 100 litres of water every day for a year!
Unlike back in the day of pharaohs, cotton cultivation now uses loads of chemicals – 4% of all world pesticides and 10% of insecticides are used in cotton-growing. In 2007 the Environmental Justice Foundation and the Pesticide Action Network declared cotton to be the world’s ‘dirtiest’ agricultural commodity. These inputs can pollute local eco-systems, and drinking water supplies.
Nine of the most commonly used pesticides in cotton protection are cancer causing agents.
“What is clear is that the promised reductions in pesticide use from genetically modified cotton are often illusory and short-lived. Poor resistance management and new pests are driving big increases in insecticide use in India, China and Brazil. While the introduction of herbicide-tolerant GM varieties has seen a massive increase in herbicide use in some countries like the US.” - Dr Keith Tyrell, Director, PAN UK
Cotton is currently responsible for $2 billion worth of chemical pesticides many of which are considered hazardous by the World Health Organisation. These pose a huge health threat to vulnerable farmers in the developing world, who use them without protective clothing or masks in the vicinity of their children, livestock and family food crops. They have been linked to infertility, neurological disorders and physical deformities. Nine of the most commonly used pesticides in cotton protection are cancer causing agents.
The ugly
Conventional cotton & human rights
Cotton also has some huge human rights issues. From forced labour and children working in the fields and ginning factories (where they separate cotton from its seeds), to the workshops where the garments are made.
Human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch have now documented evidence of the ongoing use of child and forced labour, modern slavery in the form of bonded slavery in cotton cultivation today, with children as young as five working in cotton fields or ginning factories in countries such as India, Egypt, Brazil,Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and even the USA!
As a globally traded cash crop, prices for cotton can fluctuate significantly. This hits poor cotton producers particularly badly, affecting their incomes, working conditions and quality of life. In India there are reports of vast numbers of small cotton farmers who have committed suicide having found themselves in inextricable debt. They are using genetically modified seeds which are resistant to pests BUT they can’t reproduce which means the farms have to buy new seeds every year.
Cottoning On
It's not all doom and gloom! There is hope.
Bless your cotton socks for getting this far and caring about where your clothes come from, their impact on the environment and the communities, so far removed from your comfy sofa in your cosy home.
The good news is that things are changing in the cotton industry - for both the people and the environment. You can help champion those changes by putting your money where your values rest. Buying clothes which are made from organic cotton will help make a difference.
Learn More
White Gold: The True Cost of Cotton
This internationally acclaimed report exposes how the billion-dollar cotton industry is causing an environmental catastrophe as well as highlighting human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, Central Asia.
The True Cost
This movie is about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, but the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically.
How your T-shirt can make a difference
In this short video by National Geographic you'll learn how to reduce the environmental impact of your t-shirt's by learning how to take better care of them, post purchase.
If this has raised more questions than it’s answered don’t hold back - let it all out! Drop us an email and we’ll do our damnedest to get the answers to you - who knows you may inspire another blog post with your insightful question!
