Be Seduced to Reduce Pollution: Slip into Sustainable Apparel
Document Actions
Be Seduced to Reduce Pollution: Slip into Something more Satisfying
By Marta Swain
Those wishing to help a more sustainable future for themselves and the world are finding fun, practical ways to enhance the quality of their life. What we eat and how it’s grown directly affects our health, as do the ways products we choose to buy are made. Discerning people of all ages can now have the satisfaction of making informed, conscious choices in favor of cloths that seduce with comfort and style while improving personal, social and ecological well being…
Why should we care?
Much apparel poses some serious problems. Few are made of what goes into the manufacturing of the clothing they purchases, but all are affected, whether directly or indirectly, by an apparel industry that generates huge waste of water, land, and energy, as well as pollution and social injustice.
The core of the problem is American consumption of cheap cloths in record numbers. From raw material production through packaging of finished garments-toxic pesticides, dyes and other treatments of crops and clothing can cause serious allergies as well as other health impairments. Author Juliet Schor in "The Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the 21st Century" reports that an estimated 70 percent of textile effluents and 20 percent dyestuffs are dumped into water ways, contaminating rivers, lakes, and seas.
One of the worst offenders is conventionally grown cotton.
Clothing affects health
Question: Why is fiber advertised as "the fabric of our lives" actually allowed to threaten our health as perhaps the most unsustainable crop in the world?
Answer: Political lobbies, marketing, and "unconscious commerce."
Are we buying into it?
A typical American high school graduate has seen 350,000 commercials, including two minutes of ads for every 10 minutes of video "news" piped into classrooms. On average, adults see 21,000 commercials per year, 75 percent of which are paid by the 100 largest corporations in America…[who] spend more money trying to get us to buy their products than we spend on all of the secondary education in the entire United States. So writes Paul Hawken in his book, Ecology of Commerce.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, more insecticides are used in cotton than any other crop, accounting for 24 percent of all insecticides applied globally, and 60 percent of insecticides applied in the United States, amounting to a total 60 million pounds per year. In other words, reports the FAO, 10 percent of the production of the $40 billion agriculture pesticide industry is sprayed on cotton crops. Some of these are among the most toxic and persistent pesticides known. The Sustainable Cotton Project reports that "Of the top 15 chemicals used in California cotton farming, 7 of them cause cancer and all but 1 cause birth defects.
The USDA, for example, has banned the use of organophosphate pesticides on food crops due to their high toxicity and link to cancers, reproductive and neurological disorders, yet they are still widely used in cotton farming. So these same toxic pesticides can find their way into our bodies through cotton by-products regularly consumed in large quantities by domestic dairy cattle. So says the Pesticide Action Network of North America.
About 1/3-pound of petroleum based fertilizers and farm based chemicals go into producing one cotton T-shirt.
More, The World Wildlife Fund has identified cotton as the most fresh water intensive crop in the world. Raising just 1 kilogram of cotton lint requires 29,000 liters of fresh water.
Good news-Better options
For some time now heroes have been at work in concert with nature, developing and refining more sustainable apparel options. One of these options has been serving civilizations as food, fuel, and fiber for 10,000 years. It just may be the most sustainable crop with the greatest potential to create strong, regional economies throughout the United States.
Who among us has heard of industrial hemp?
Hemp is playing an increasingly significant role in reducing the apparel industry’s use of carcinogenic compounds, toxic dyes and solvents as well as the unhealthy working conditions they effect. Ecologically sound methods are used to fashion hemp into sumptuously seductive fabrics of great appeal. People of all ages and backgrounds have discovered that hemp blends exquisitely with silk, wool, organic cotton and tencel. Exceptional breathability and insulative qualities make hemp garments more temperature versatile and less seasonal. Today hemp and its various blends are poised to rival our former favorite fabrics.
Transferring our clothing preferences to include hemp has many earth-friendly advantages (for details see thehia.org).
Benefits of Hemp:
· Grows readily without pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.
· Produces 4 times the biomass as the same acreage of trees.
· Constitutes a clean burning biomass fuel energy source that could significantly reduce consumption of fossil fuels and nuclear power.
· Offers the longest, strongest & most durable natural fiber for producing highest quality paper as well as economical building materials naturally resistant to fire, warping and mildew.
· Contains complete protein of amino acids and essential fatty acids that prevent cancer, heart disease and high blood pressure.
Replacing just 55 percent of the cotton consumed in the estimated 1.4 billion cotton T-shirts sold each year in the United States with hemp, this country could realize energy savings sufficient to provide household power for more than 92,000 people, plus, 1,339 billion gallons of water savings sufficient to supply a full year of household water consumption for more than half of the US population (see http://calculator.hemptown.com/calculator.html).
Twice in U.S. history, landowners were legally bound to grow hemp due to its capacity to support economic prosperity. In fact, hemp was accepted in lieu of tax. But in 1936, political influence from petroleum and forestry interests effectively confused hemp (an agricultural crop) with marijuana (a drug crop), successfully sabotaging our society’s opportunities to benefit from this plant, and growing hemp became illegal for the first time in world history.
Fortunately for people and the planet, forward thinking Democrat and Republican leaders are taking another look at hemp. In "A Renewal of Common Sense" at VoteHemp.com, author Eric Rothenburg makes the case for hemp’s clear potential to provide economic and ecologic relief to many serious issues facing our nation.
The United Nations, in its World Charter for Nature, clearly recognizes that "In the decision making process it shall be recognized that man’s needs can be met only by ensuring the proper functioning of natural systems…degradation is caused by excessive consumption and misuse," and that "Competition for limited resources can cause conflict…[while] conservation contributes to peace and cooperation."
Clothing can help us all enjoy being a part of the solution. Rather than contributing to the costs of buying and selling with no questions asked, apparel production can respect the integrity of people and places of the planet.
We all have a present and future stake in the increasingly urgent need to improve the health and well-being of our families, communities, and Nature’s life support systems. We each can make a difference through conscious commerce that encourages inquiry and thoughtful investment in products that both sustain life and enliven spirits. When considering apparel options, invite yourself to expect more, indulge your integrity, and look for a higher return on your investment.
Marta Swain is the founder and owner of Clothing Matters in Grand Rapids. Since 1996, Swain has promoted sustainably manufactured apparel to address these principles through her store’s world class collection. For more information call 616-742-2818 (store) or 616-988-8500 (business office) or visit ClothingMatters.net.
Originally published in Natural Awakenings West Michigan October 2006 Environment issue.
