The true cost behind a Cheap cotton t-Shirt
If you haven’t watched '“The True Cost” documentary, I encourage you to do so! It focuses on the clothes we wear, the makers, and the impact the fashion industry is having on our world. Sometimes it’s hard to realize the truth, but I promise, when it comes to fast fashion, it is necessary that you know the truth behind the making of cheap clothes.
First things first, you might be wondering what is the true cost behind a cheap cotton t-shirt? In this article, we are going to focus on 3 main topics and to make it easier for you, we are going to call them the 3 Ps:
The Production
The People
The Planet
The Production:
The most concerning problem is the immense amount of cotton that is produced yearly. Did you know that approximately half of all textiles are made of cotton?¹.
27 million tons of cotton are produced a year. To put things into perspective, this would be equal to 27 t-shirts for every single person, yes for every 7.5+ billion of us.²
Now that you have a picture of how much (way more than we need!) cotton is produced, imagine the tremendous amounts of chemicals that are used for its production. Cotton covers only 2.4% of the world’s agricultural land but consumes 6% of the world’s pesticides and 16% of insecticides.³ The use of pesticide contaminates the water, kills beneficial insects and soil microorganisms, can poison farmworkers, and drift into neighboring communities, which takes us to the next P.
The People:
One of the most heartbreaking realities is how harmful it can be for the people working in the cotton fields and the communities surrounding them. According to Pesticide Action Network, “nearly 1,000 people die every day from acute pesticide poisoning and many more suffer from chronic ill-health, such as cancers and leukemia, neurological diseases and reproductive problems including infertility, miscarriage and birth defects.”⁴
Another major concern is child labor.⁵ According to the International Labour Organization, 170 million, which represents 11% of the world’s children, are engaged in child labor, many of whom are working in the fashion industry.⁶ This allows fast fashion companies to sell cheap clothing because they are not paying adults to do the job, they are giving little to nothing wages to children in vulnerable conditions. (Please read more about it in this report from the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations - SOMO, and the India Committee of the Netherlands - ICN).
After understanding how unsafe it can be to work on the field because of the chemicals, cotton producers still prefer to have children working on the fields because it is easier for children to pick up the cotton with their small fingers and not damage the crop.⁷ But before we finish, let’s go to the last P.
The Planet:
Water. There are two main problems: first, producing cotton uses way too much water, and second, all the chemicals that are used are polluting the waterways, which has become an issue for animals, communities, and therefore, our planet.
Global cotton production requires over 250 billion tons of water annually, which equals to 10,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of cotton (around 5 t-shirts). Meanwhile, more than 2 billion people are in need of water. According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 3 people globally do not have access to safe drinking water.⁸ If we keep going this route, our planet will not be able to provide drinking water for more than half of us.
So what’s next?
Even though fast fashion is a big and a difficult problem to solve, the answer is easy - slow, and sustainable fashion. And by this, I don’t mean just buying sustainable fashion brands and organic cotton, it goes beyond that. The most sustainable t-shirt that you can find is the one that you already have in your closet.
Here are a few quick ideas if you want to make things practical:
If you don’t need it, don’t buy it.
If you do need it, buy it responsibly - second-hand or new.
When you buy it, ASK the questions - where was this piece made? who made this piece? what are the materials?
Keep your closet clean, if you don’t use something, someone else could give it a better use!
Share what you have learned with someone, some do care but have no idea.
Keep enjoying fashion, it was never supposed to be fast, it was always supposed to be for us to savor it!
(1) https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/cotton(2) https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/consumption/clothing/world-cotton-production-statistics/story(3) https://www.pan-uk.org/cotton/(4) https://www.pan-uk.org/cotton/(5) What is child labour? The term “child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. https://www.ilo.org/ipec/facts/lang--en/index.htm(6) https://labs.theguardian.com/unicef-child-labour/(7) https://labs.theguardian.com/unicef-child-labour/(8) https://www.who.int/news/item/18-06-2019-1-in-3-people-globally-do-not-have-access-to-safe-drinking-water-unicef-who(9) https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/20/cost-cotton-water-challenged-india-world-water-day