Hello fellow ethical fashionistas! Today’s post will be focusing on how the fashion / textile industry is closely related to soil pollution. If you have been following our previous posts, we have already talked about fashion and its effects on our air and water bodies. However, today, we will be focusing on land (soil) which is also equally as important to our air and water. Therefore, in this post, I will be focusing on how pesticides and the waste disposal from textile industries pollute our soils.
To start off, what exactly is soil? Soil is defined to be ‘a dynamic natural body composed of mineral and organic solids, gases, liquids, and living organisms’ (Cachada, 2018, p.1). Especially with regards to the fast fashion / textile industry, soil pollution comes about as there is excessive use of pesticides to cultivate crops like cotton. In our previous post, we have already mentioned how cotton is highly demanded due to the need to continuously produce clothes for consumers. As such, many farmers in developing countries have resorted to the use of pesticides in hopes of increasing the yield of cotton by keeping pests away. However, these excessive amounts of pesticides use not only has effects on the water bodies, but it has a very direct impact on soil too. Some of the common pesticides being used in cotton farming range from DDT, endosulfan, chlorfenapyr, etc (Ashfaq et al., 2019). Such pesticides like DDT contains Persistent organic pollutants (POP). POP is considered to be extremely toxic because of its bioaccumulation potential and frightening amounts of toxicity. Hence, if these pesticides come into contact with soil, the effects to the environment and humans are extremely devastating.
Notably, there are 2 categories of soil pollution. One being local (point) and diffuse types of contamination of soil. Local contamination of soils are usually characterised by the fact that it has a heterogeneous pattern with more contamination detected at certain hotspots. On the other hand, diffuse type of contamination is one characterised by a homogenous pattern that spans across large areas. This difference is due to the nature of the source of the contamination. Diffuse type of soil contaminations usually originates from the ‘continuous and long-term emission of contaminants from dispersed sources’ (Cachada, 2018). Hence, it can be said that the pesticides used during cotton cultivation is a type of diffuse soil contamination. This is because farmers often use excessive amounts of pesticides over a large area of land repeatedly, over a period of time. When pesticides are being sprayed onto the cotton crops, they will start to travel from the surface water to the soil and eventually to the ground water (Hill, 2010). Thus, overtime, the soil being used to cultivate these cotton fields are increasingly toxic as these pesticides start to bioaccumulate within these soils. The quality of the soils will eventually deteriorate to a point where it is no longer able to return to what it once was.
Secondly, as reiterated in our previous posts, the textile industries require huge amounts of water during their manufacturing process. Be it for dying, bleaching etc, massive amounts of water are used and contaminated during the manufacturing process. However, where does all this waste water get deposited to? Some of them are being deposited into water bodies while others onto soil. The wastewater produced by these textile industries are often alkaline in nature and consists of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Some of these substances include phenols or halogenated organics from dying and bleaching processes respectively (Hagberg & Löfgren, 2007). Some of this waste water also contains the chemicals used during the process of manufacturing these textile like solvents (Hagberg & Löfgren, 2007).
To sum up, these are the few of the many causes of soil pollution. The ones mentioned in this post ranges from the excessive use of pesticides to the disposal of toxic waste water onto the soils. The various ways of soil being contaminated have dire effects on the environment and also on us. The food we take in usually has a starting point and that usually originates from soils. Therefore, it is pertinent to remember that our soils are also an extremely precious resource, they are just as important and precious like that of our air and water bodies. If the fast fashion / textile industries continue to go about this line of manufacturing, the consequences of soil pollution may be irreversible.
References:
Ashfaq, A., Shahid, M., Khalid, S., Zaffar, H., Naqvi, T., Pervez, A., . . . Nasim, W. (2019). Residues of endosulfan in cotton growing area of vehari, pakistan: An assessment of knowledge and awareness of pesticide use and health risks. Environmental Science and Pollution Research International, 26(20), 20079-20091. doi:http://dx.doi.org.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/10.1007/s11356-018-3169-6
Cachada, A., Rocha-Santos, T., & Duarte, A. C. (2018). Soil and Pollution: An Introduction to the Main Issues. In Soil Pollution, Academic Press, (pp. 1-28). https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-849873-6.00001-7.
Hagberg, L., & Löfgren, E. (2007). Soil and plant contamination by textile industries at ZFILM, Managua, (pp 1-65). Project work in Aquatic and Environmental Engineering, 10 ECTS, Uppsala University Project course, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Hill, M. (2010). Pesticides. In Understanding Environmental Pollution (pp.456-482). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511840654.010
The Business Insider. (2017). Amid ‘serious’ situation, China eyes soil pollution law in 2017. Retrieved 14 October 2020 from: https://www.businessinsider.com/r-amid-serious-situation-china-eyes-soil-pollution-law-in-2017-2016-3
