After recharging over recess week, welcome back! Hope everyone has had a good rest.
This post marks the first post in Chapter 2 where I discuss environmental pollution caused by the fast fashion industry, including issues of socio-environmental injustice. As implied by the title (Inspired by the fast fashion brand, Cotton On), this week’s post focuses on cotton and pollution caused by cotton farming. Part 1 focuses on the environmental impacts, while Part 2 focuses on the socio-economic impacts.
Cotton is a common raw material used to make clothes. 90% of our clothes are produced with either cotton or polyester (Bick et al., 2018).
Water-intensive
The main problem with using cotton lies in its appetite for water – the crop is extremely water-intensive and as much as 20,000 litres of water are required to produce just 1kg of cotton (Leahy, 2015). Cotton also accounts for almost 70% of the water footprint in the textile industry (Okafor, 2021). Formerly the fourth largest lake in the world, cotton production contributed to the depletion of surface water in the Aral Sea to nearly 10% of its original volume. Back in 1959, the Soviet Union chose Central Asia as their main cotton supplier and water was diverted from the Aral Sea’s feeder rivers to provide the water needed for expanding agriculture and cotton production. By 2014, satellite images revealed that the eastern basin had completely dried up and the region is now known as the Aralkum Desert (Liston, 2014). More than 60 million people live near the Aral Sea basin and the desiccation of the Aral Sea has had repercussions on fishing industries and the well-being of the communities. (Read more about the impacts of the drying Areal Sea in Part 2 of Cotton On? Cotton Off).
In recent years, the Kazakh government has implemented plans to restore the Northern Aral Sea. Annual fish catch increased from 1,360 tons in 2006 to more than 7000s tons in 2016. However, across the border in Uzbekistan, the Southern Aral Sea has seen less success in its restoration works due to continued reliance on cotton farming as a source of income (Chen, 2018).
Use of harmful agrochemicals
Besides its large water footprint, cotton farming also relies on the use of agrochemicals such as pesticides and synthetic fertilisers. It is estimated that 8 million tonnes of synthetic fertilisers and 200,000 tonnes of pesticides are used annually to produce cotton. In fact, cotton production uses 24% of the insecticides and 11% of the pesticides produced globally. Among the most common pesticides used for cotton production, glyphosate, diuron and tribufos are known to be human carcinogens. Some are also identified to be endocrine disruptors and harmful to bee populations (Okafor, 2021).
Synthetic fibres as an alternative?
Fortunately (or not…), there has been an unprecedented growth in the use of synthetic fibres like polyesters. These synthetic fibres have been marketed as a more sustainable alternative since it does not require pesticides, land or water as compared to their ‘natural’ counterparts. However, this opens another can of worms such as microplastic pollution and more carbon dioxide emissions. The next post will focus on the socio-economic/socio-environmental impacts of cotton farming and until then, let’s keep running away from fast fashion!
Cheers,
Chermaine
References
Bick, R., Halsey, E., & Ekenga, C. C. (2018). The global environmental injustice of fast fashion. Environmental Health, 17(1), 92. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-018-0433-7
Chen, D.-H. (2018). The country that brought a sea back to life. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180719-how-kazakhstan-brought-the-aral-sea-back-to-life
Dottle, R., & Gu, J. (2022). The Real Environmental Impact of the Fashion Industry. Bloomberg.Com. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-fashion-industry-environmental-impact/
Leahy, S. (2015). World Water Day: The cost of cotton in water-challenged India. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/20/cost-cotton-water-challenged-india-world-water-day
Liston, E. (2014). Satellite images show Aral Sea basin ‘completely dried’. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/01/satellite-images-show-aral-sea-basin-completely-dried
Okafor, J. (2021). Environmental Impact of Cotton. TRVST. https://www.trvst.world/sustainable-living/fashion/environmental-impact-of-cotton/
Sibom. (2012). Русский: Анимация Северного Арала 2000 и 2011 гг. Own work, снимки NASA [1],[2]. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:North_Aral_Sea_2000_and_2011.gif
SustainYourStyle. (n.d.). Fashion & Environment. SustainYourStyle. Retrieved 1 March 2022, from https://www.sustainyourstyle.org/en/whats-wrong-with-the-fashion-industry