The importance of organic clothing: What you need to know

You might be familiar with the bestselling novel Bridget Jones’s Diary, or the film adaptation that starred Renée Zellweger. In the book, a character talks about environmentalism: “Ten years ago people who cared about the environment were laughed at as sandal wearing beardy weirdies and now look at the power of the green consumer.”

The novel was published in 1997, so the character was referencing the 1980’s- and it could be argued that the power of the green consumer has certainly grown and grown over the subsequent decades. Now more than ever, we see green products offered and advertised everywhere.

A sense of environmental responsibility influences many aspects of everyday life, whether it’s through recycling without even thinking twice about it; which car we drive and if we drive a hybrid car or if we take other types of transportation such as a metro or bus. Even the types of food we choose when at the supermarket affects our life and the environment. While it’s not yet a common form of environmental consciousness as recycling, food, and transportation; the clothes we wear and how they were made is slowly entering mainstream thinking. Each day, a growing number of consumers are rejecting conventionally made clothing and are instead turning to garments that have been made using organic clothing. So why is organic clothing so important to helping the people and the environment?

Cotton and Working Conditions

In developing countries where people will often work in poor conditioned sweatshops for major brands and retailers, it costs very little to produce clothing. The public has known about these conditions for quite some time and many shoppers will actively seek out clothing that they know has not been produced under these conditions and some retailers even use it as part of their marketing plan for their products.

The popular fashion label American Apparel actively keeps the majority of its production in the USA and pays its workers above the minimum wage, and even many of their offshore production facilities pay their workers the US minimum wage. While this is arguably a moral stance, true environmentalism in the fashion trade is more about the type of fabric that is used.

The Dangers of Conventional Cotton Production

The global cotton industry is a mammoth affair. While 2.5% doesn’t sound like a lot, 2.5% of all the cultivated farmland in the world is dedicated to cotton production, which is a huge amount of land. However, this 2.5% is disproportionate to the amount of chemicals that are actually involved in the cultivation of the crop itself and cotton accounts for an amazing 16% of global insecticide usage.

These large amounts of toxic chemicals subsequently pollute the surrounding countryside- both the soil that was fertilized to help grow the cotton crop, the many different waterways: both the water on the surface and underground in the surrounding area. The impact of pesticides in land and water threatens everyone and countless forms of natural life. Poisoning from pesticides have been estimated to kill as many as up to 220,000 people each year; whether it’s through illness from prolonged exposure to pesticides or through acute poisoning. There are also countless animal, bird and insect deaths each year due to the amount of hazardous pesticides and chemical waste in the environment.

The Benefits of Organic Cotton

Organic cotton does not use chemical pesticides and also requires significantly less carbon dioxide to be created during the growth of the crops, as well as using less water- due to crop rotation being used to refresh the soil, rather than chemical stimulants. There’s also a small risk that pesticides and insecticides are still present in small amounts even when conventionally grown cotton has been made into clothing, which can then be absorbed into humans via the skin. This risk is simply not present with organically grown cotton.

So when you’re in the market for new clothes, you might want to consider an organic shirt for yourself or even an organic infant onesie for the junior members of your family. It’s just a matter of time before organic clothing becomes the norm, but that all-important first step needs to be made, that is the first step is the purchasing power of consumers.