I Have Been Cloth-Shamed, But Not For What You Think
The agricultural impact of what you wear
Have you ever been “cloth-shamed” by someone? I recently had the experience thanks to a close friend, but not because I was “improperly” dressed for a fancy event, but for a completely different reason (and a way more important one). Although it was a quite eye-opening moment, the acknowledgement that my friend’s disappointment in my clothing choices had strong environmental foundations, made my shopping mistake particularly stinging to me.
But why have I been cloth-shamed, or to be more precise, “shirt-shamed”? The reason is very simple: the brand new shirt I had so proudly found to be perfectly fitting me was, in my friend’s eyes, nothing more than an environmental atrocity. The cotton of which it was made of wasn’t environmentally sustainable at all, making my shirt a quite impacting item to be ashamed of, rather than a cool purchase to be happy about.
Although I was aware that the wet processing of cotton production can be very impacting, especially if not carried out under strict environmental regulations, my friend’s complaint was related to the purely agricultural production step of cotton, which can also be highly impacting for a series of different factors.
From water consumption…
Cotton ranks among the most water consuming fibre crops, as it takes 10,000 liters of water to produce 1 kilo of cotton and, according to WWF, up to 2700 liters of water to produce one single cotton T-shirt.
The total water consumption of this crop goes under the definition of virtual water content of seed cotton (m3/ton), which is made up by two components:
- Green Water, referring to the amount of irrigation water used to produce a certain yield
- Blue Water, referring to the rainfall water used to produce a certain yield
As a consequence, cotton production in Countries where the rainfall during the growing season is low, or at least lower that the cotton water requirements, will need a much bigger share of irrigation water and, as a consequence, the virtual water content of seed cotton will present a major share of green water.
A primary consequences of this, is that cotton production in different climatic conditions will then be dependent on different water sourcing, and therefore responsible for different levels of water consumption. Climatic conditions are the least attractive for countries with a very low effective rainfall (0 — 100 mm) and a very high evaporative demand (1000 — 1300 mm), such as Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Uzbekistan. Countries such as the USA and Brazil are instead very water extensive, due to the high yearly rainfall and low evaporative demand (500 — 600 mm).
If it was just a matter of water consumption for the production step, it would be fairly easy to choose cotton coming from the rainfed systems of climatically wetter regions over the irrigated systems of drier areas of the World. Unfortunately, cotton presents more problems that simply the water consumption related to its production.
…to water pollution
Pesticide use and water contamination play also important roles when it comes to (lack of) sustainability in the cotton industry.
According to a WWF report,
“Only 2.4 percent of the world’s arable land is planted with cotton yet cotton accounts for 24 percent of the world’s insecticide market and 11 percent of the sale of global pesticides” — WWF, 2003
Furthermore, in cotton production, water is not only being used up in irrigation systems to a massive extent in unsuitable climatic conditions and contaminated by the pesticides used in the fields, but it is also impacted by the poor ratio between the amount of fertilizers applied to the crops and the nutrients that are effectively taken up by the plants.
The main macronutrients in plant production are Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potash (K), with Nitrogen being on the top of the list for the several purposes it serves within the plants’ biochemical and physiological processes. However, just a fraction of all of the nitrogen applied to the soil is effectively being taken up by cotton plants. A study found out that
“About 60 percent of the total nitrogen applied is removed in the seed cotton” - (CRC, 2004)
meaning that the remaining fraction either goes into the atmosphere as nitrous oxide (contributing to increase the atmospheric GHGs cocnentration responsible for climate change) via denitrification processes or it is leached to ground water or it risks of causing eutrophication problems (fostering of algae growth in surface water, resulting in depletion of oxygen with consequent death of the acquatic ecosystem).
Now we see why the green/blue water ratio can’t be used as the sole way to judge the sustainability of cotton production: the US, which has a relatively extensive system in terms of irrigation, appears very intensive in terms of fertilization (625544 tons/y of N compared to the 16076 tons/y of N of Egypt, which instead has a much higher use of irrigation water). These two different approaches lead to a completely different level of nitrogen pollution: a yearly leaching of 62,554 tons of N in the US and 1,608 tons of N in Egypt.
Problems continue also off the field…
Sustainability issues related to cotton production do not end with the harvesting of the final product. High volumes of water are used in the wet processing (bleaching, dying and printing) and finishing stage. According to a study by USEPA, these volumes sum up to 360 m3/ton and to 136 m3/ton of cotton textile respectively.
In addition, chemical contamination as a result of the cotton processing in textile industries is to be taken into account too, along with the amount of water needed to meet the desired level of dilution for each specific pollutant. A study by WB found that a 1 pair of Jeans produces a total volume of 10850 litres of water, while 1 single beed sheets a total volume of 9750 litres.
Cotton or not cotton? Not a problem!
So, if you are still into cotton cloths but you have now developed an environmental consciousness for how it is produced, do not despair! There is a solution to this: get organic cotton!
Not only organic cotton is produced from seeds which are not treated with agrochemicals, as these are banned in organic agriculture, but the water requirements are lower. According to Textile Exchange 2017, in conventional agriculture each ton of cotton requires 2120 liters of water as compared to just 182 liters in organic agriculture. The environment is not only the main beneficiary of organic production, but we are too. In the conventional wet processing, chemicals and heavy metals are used to process the product and dye it, but organic cotton is instead processed with natural alternatives, like clay dyeing.
Of course, clothes from organic cotton are considerably more expensive, but what we spend in quality will benefit the environment and our own health.
