Cotton is a dirty industry

Cotton is the world’s most valuable (legal) non-food agricultural product. The cotton industry is also one of the dirtiest industries in the world. It uses enormous amounts of pesticides, and the use of child labor is common.

Main cotton producing countries

Five countries make up around 75% of global cotton production.

• India: 6.1 million tons
• China: 5.5 million tons
• US: 4.1 million tons
• Brazil: 1.9 million tons
• Pakistan: 1.7 million tons

27 million tons of cotton are produced a year. The same as 27 t-shirts for everyone on Earth. But the consumption of cotton varies a lot. Some Western countries use an amount of cotton that would correspond to more than 100 t-shirts per person per year.

Most of our clothes are made from conventionally produced cotton that use massive amounts of pesticides and freshwater. On top of that, the use of child labor and slavery is widespread in the industry.

Why cotton is called the dirtiest crop in the world

Cotton is a very pesticide-intensive crop. It is grown on 2.5% of the world’s agricultural land but consumes 16% of all the insecticides and 7% of all herbicides used worldwide - that’s more than any other crop in the world. Very harmful chemicals are used on cotton crops, including nerve agents and neurotoxins.

Facts on chemicals of cotton production

Almost 1kg of hazardous pesticides is used globally for every one hectare of cotton cropland. US$ 3.3 billion of chemicals are sprayed on cotton crops globally every year.

Examples of chemicals used for cotton production

Many of the chemicals used for cotton are so toxic they are considered hazardous by the World Health Organization. A few examples:

• Aldicarb: One of the most toxic pesticides applied to cotton. A powerful nerve agent.
• Endosulfan: One of the most widely used pesticides for cotton. Linked to comas, seizures, and even death. Believed to be the most important source of fatal poisoning among West African cotton farmers.

Children and pesticides - not a good mix

Often, child laborers are directly involved in cotton pesticide application. Usually with no protection at all. Because of their smaller body size, differing metabolism, and rapidly growing and developing organ systems, children are much more vulnerable to the negative effects of being exposed to pesticides.

Poison from cotton chemicals

The poison can accumulate in the body and be passed on to next generations. Cotton chemicals can cause spontaneous abortion, still birth, sterility, behavioral abnormalities, and cancer. To name a few effects. The hazardous pesticides used for cotton production can be detected in cotton clothing.

Cotton chemicals cause water pollution

In addition to the toxic effects for the people growing, producing and consuming cotton and cotton clothing, runoff of chemicals from cotton fields also contaminates surrounding ecosystems such as rivers and lakes. The chemicals also find their way into our groundwater resources.

On top of that, cotton cultivation causes soil degradation and erosion as well as loss of forest area and other habitat.

Cotton production is extremely water demanding

It takes more than 10 tons of water to produce cotton for a single pair of jeans. Cotton production uses so much water it has virtually emptied a whole sea. Really. The Aral Sea is more or less gone. The UN has labelled it one of the worst environmental disasters in history.

Cotton production and climate change

Globally, cotton production is responsible for the emission of 220 million tons of CO2 annually.

Benefits of organic cotton

Organic cotton has a number of advantages for the planet as well as the people producing it, including:

• No use of synthetic chemicals
• 91% lower water consumption
• 62% lower energy demand
• 46% lower CO2-emissions
• 26% lower soil erosion