What is something that is soft, cloud like and feels fluffy to touch? No, it’s not the clouds… but if you are wondering if it is cotton, you are right! In today’s blog post, I will be focusing on cotton and how it relates to the fast fashion industry and most importantly, how they contribute to water pollution.
Firstly, pause and take a second to think about the clothes you are currently donning or the clothes in your closet. Many of them are made up of materials such as cotton, wool or synthetics. Cotton is actually the most popular fibre to manufacture clothings that we wear today (Caludio, 2007). Along with that, the processing of cotton also requires large volumes of water (Hu, Li, Chen & Wang, 2014). As much as 20,000 litres of water is needed to produce just one shirt and a pair of jeans (WWF, n.d.). Hence, just by looking at this, we can see that cotton is a very significant and important material when it comes to the fashion industry.
In order to meet this demand for cotton due to the rampant consumption of clothes, the cotton crop has to be readily available for use. Thus, to fulfill this need, pesticides will be used. The purpose of using the pesticides is to prevent insects from slowing down the growth of the crop during the cultivation of cotton. In addition, cotton requires a tropical / subtropical climate to thrive. Pesticides are hence also used to be able to cultivate the cotton crops in ecologically inappropriate areas. For example, cotton is able to thrive in places like Texas without the aid of pesticides. However in places in the South Eastern humid states of the US, the crop requires a huge amount of pesticides to grow (Hill, 2010).
To cultivate cotton, the most common type of pesticide used is called Aldicarb and it is not only damaging to the environment, but is highly poisonous to humans (Shanh, 2010). These applied pesticides will eventually end up as nonpoint source (NPS) runoff and flow into the water bodies near it (Hill, 2010). NPS essentially refers to how the pesticides may originate from many possible points of origin and is difficult to identify where the main source actually is (Hill, 2010).
Consequently, the aquatic life living in the polluted water bodies will be affected too. This results in a vicious cycle of bioaccumulation as pesticides are very persistent and will remain and accumulate in the food chain. This will eventually affect the health of humans when they ingest these aquatic life. Apart from the mentioned, the groundwater will also be impacted because some of the pesticides are water soluble and can leach further into the soil to affect the groundwater that people use to drink (Hill, 2010).
At the end of the day, although pesticides may be justified for certain uses, the pollution and associated problems that arise out of applying them are serious. A garment is no longer just a piece of garment when you think deep about how one piece of clothing can adversely affect the environment. Hopefully, more ethical practices of fashion consumption will come into fruition or that more fashion companies can be more open to using organic materials.
References:
Claudio, L. (2007). Environmental Health Perspectives. Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry, 115:9. CID: https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.115-a449
Hill, M. (2010). Water pollution. In Understanding Environmental Pollution (pp. 236-285). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511840654.010
Hill, M. (2010). Pesticides. In Understanding Environmental Pollution (pp. 456-482). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511840654.017
Oxfam. (n.d.) 4 ways to make your wardrobe more sustainable. Retrieved August 28 2020, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/make-your-wardrobe-more-sustainable-and-work-harder
Shah, R. (2011). Examine the role of different actors across the textile -fashion supply chain to understand the issues regarding growth of eco-labeled sustainable textile products (Order No. 10820698). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2061007405). Retrieved from http://libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/docview/2061007405?accountid=13876
WWF. (n.d.). Cotton. Retrieved August 28 2020, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/cotton
