swedishlinens.com: Regular cotton consumes 16% of the world’s insecticides and requires $2 Billion in pesticides each year. Grass-fed. But about half of cotton crops globally—organic and conventional—get their water from rainfall, … The most water-efficient option is … rain-fed cotton, but there’s no way to know whether the cotton in the t-shirt you’re buying was that variety, or whether it required additional water. For only 1 kilogram of cotton, we have to use around 20,000 liters of water. Less Toxic Runoff Into Soil, & Freshwater Sources & The Ocean – Both synthetic pesticides and fertilizers can leach or seep down through the soil causing soil contamination issues, and also into ground water aquifers when washed away by rainfall. Less Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Less Energy Intensive and Smaller Carbon Footprint – Per sourcingjournal.com: organic cotton is 46 percent less harmful to global warming [and] organic cotton can reduce demand for energy by as much as 62 percent. Environmental conditions and gender aspects still remain challenging. The production of Organic Cotton has increased enormously over the last few years. The Textile Exchange study only compared the production of organic and conventional cotton, but it didn’t look into the processing of raw cotton and the production of the textile. Organic cotton fibers are longer and they have a stronger connection with each other. Those pesticides, insecticides, and fertilizers are being used for a reason. To make a pair of jeans, conventional cotton would take 9,910 gallons of water compared to 932 with organic (a savings of 8,978 gallons). It also found that organic cotton farming is less likely to contribute to global warming, acidification, and eutrophication than conventional cotton farming. A Danish study compared the environmental impact of different carrier bags, and found organic cotton bags have to be used 20,000 versus 7,000 times for regular cotton bags, to have the same environmental impact as plastic bags across a range of environmental indicators. Organic cotton is the safest and comfiest choice for babies’ clothes as well who have awfully sensitive skin. Regular cotton fibers might be damaged by the chemicals which result in a lower quality textile. One of the good things about GOTS Certified Cotton is they tell you the criteria to expect from products with their certification on them – environmental, social, quality criteria and so on. First of all, what is organic cotton? Use of pesticides and fertilizers? Then there’s greenwashing which is a whole other problem. Organic cotton products are softer than regular cotton because of the longer fibers. Per theconversation.com: Organic farms use more land and labour to produce the same amount of produce as conventional agriculture. So far, organic cotton sounds awesome, and you don’t understand why would anyone buy regular cotton ever again. The problem is even worse in developing countries with uninformed consumers, and lack of stable institutions and property rights. ammonia. thegreenhubonline.com: Organic cotton has less of a reliance on non natural resources, and more reliance on the natural land, soil etc …, conserves water (making the soil more friable so rainwater is absorbed better – lessening irrigation requirements and erosion) … [and it], and compared to forests, agricultural soils may be a more secure sink for atmospheric carbon, since they are not vulnerable to logging and wildfire …, sourcingjournal.com: Each [cotton] farm and geographic region of the world will have different water usage and impacts. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Organic cotton is generally defined as cotton that is grown organically in subtropical countries such as India, Turkey, China, and parts of the USA from non-genetically modified plants, and without the use of any synthetic agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers or pesticides aside from the ones allowed by the certified organic labeling. But if you call it biotechnology it sounds much cooler and more futuristic, isn’t it? Certification Can Take Time, & There Is A Maintenance Involved – to become certified in accordance with some international organic cotton standards, it can take time, cost money, and there can be an upkeep involved for farmers, suppliers and those across the production and supply chain with inspections, and keeping up certain regulatory standards and requirements of the certifying body. The cotton fibres can shorten when exposed to water during a wash cycle, which results in the material shrinking. 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