How many times we entered a shop and asked for a normal white or black Cotton T-shirt?
And how many times did we ask ourselves the impact that t-shirt has on our environment?
Unfortunately Cotton is not just part of our clothes but is part
of our furniture and food (cottonseed oil) too.
We should be aware that the 97% of the water in our planet is salty, 2% is icy and just the remaining 1% is available.
The 70% of that 1% is used to grow crops and cotton is one of the crops that needs more water.
To produce a cotton T-shirt indeed are used 2700 liters water, the equivalent needed to quench an
adult’s tshirt for 3 years.
But the production of this plant needs also a lot of soil, energy, nutrients and toxic substances such
as fertilizer, pesticides and insecticides.
The energy is not just used during the transport (trains, tracks, airplains) but also for the cotton
ginning, which has an environmental impact of 25%. The tractor is powered by fossil fuels, which
combustion emits CO2. Obviously a good alternative could be represented by the use of renewable
energy sources.
The toxic substances instead has an environmental impact of 33%.
The cotton’s production indeed corresponds to the 2% of the global agriculture but uses the 24% of
the insecticides and the 11% of pesticides produced every year in the world.
The soil instead, which has insufficient nutrients, requires 123 grams fertilizer. These emit N20
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere which have an
impact on global warming, acid rain and ozone depletion.
It is the moment to start choosing consciously and to be more informed on the product we buy
everyday.
Small companies already have an answer to this issue such as Re-Bello which solution is to
adopt Organic Cotton (Sofia Meneghetti per Gaiazoe.life)
