Monday, October 13, 2008

Debunking the Cotton Ads


I am fed up with the cotton ads I've seen lately, touting cotton as the greenest thing you can wear. I understand what they're trying to say: that it's better to wear clothing made from plant fibers than clothing made from petroleum-based fibers. But these ads totally ignore the fact that conventionally grown cotton takes a huge toll on the environment.

Here are the sobering facts:
  • Just 2.4% of the world's arable land is planted with cotton, but it accounts for 24% of the world's insecticide market and 11% of global pesticides sold, making it the most pesticide-intensive crop grown on the planet.
  • In California, five of the top nine pesticides used on cotton are cancer-causing chemicals (cyanazine, dicofol, naled, propargite and trifluralin). If you read my blog entry on mosquitos, you've heard of naled before.
  • In Egypt, more than 50% of cotton workers in the 1990s suffered symptoms of chronic pesticide poisoning, including neurological and vision disorders.
  • In India, 91% of male cotton workers exposed to pesticides eight hours or more per day experienced some type of health disorder, including chromosomal aberrations, cell death and cell cycle delay.
  • 14 million people in the U.S. are routinely drinking water contaminated with carcinogenic herbicides and 90 percent of municipal water treatment facilities lack equipment to remove these chemicals.
  • In California, it is illegal to feed the leaves, stems and short fibers of cotton plants known as "gin trash" to livestock because levels of pesticide residues are so high.
  • In the United States, 1/3 pound of agricultural chemicals are typically used in the production of a single cotton T-shirt.
  • $2 billion’s worth of chemicals are sprayed on the world’s cotton crop every year, almost half of which are considered toxic enough to be classified as hazardous by the World Health Organization.
According to Steve Trent, Director of Environmental Justice Foundation, “With no less than 99% of the world’s cotton farmers living in the developing world, the pesticides are applied in fields where illiteracy is high and safety awareness is low, putting both the environment and lives at risk.” He adds, “The dangers faced by poor illiterate children and farmers, to keep our clothes cheap, is unacceptable.”

Organic cotton, grown without pesticides and herbicides, is the only truly green cotton you can wear. If you're not sure who to believe, keep in mind that the cotton industry has a vested interest in getting the general public to believe that wearing conventionally grown cotton is a green thing to do. They're probably a little biased.

3 comments:

Sarah said...

Oooooo, this was a good one!

I love that you started this blog - I'm learning so much. :)

Wanted to ask - what about bamboo?

Unknown said...

Just curious about the source(s) for the listed stats on cotton production and the associated problems. Not doubting, just curious...

Jenny said...

The statistics in this blog entry came from a couple of different sources:

The Pesticide Action Network of North America (http://www.panna.org/files/conventionalCotton.dv.html)

The Environmental Justice Foundation (http://www.ejfoundation.org/page324.html)

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