about organic cotton

why is conventional cotton bad?

Conventional cotton production uses around 11,000 litres of water for every kilogram of cotton produced. As it takes around 450g of cotton to make the average t-shirt – that’s a highly water-intensive 5000 litres per garment!
Cotton is grown on 4% of the world’s arable soil. Annually 24% of all insecticides, and 11% of all pesticides used in the world are used on just one crop: cotton. It is estimated that less than 10% of the chemicals applied to cotton fields are actually doing their jobs. The rest goes into the air, soil, and water around the fields, harming or killing wildlife and farm workers, and severely affecting the ecology of the surrounding areas.
3,000,000 people suffer the effects of pesticides poisoning each year, 20,000 subsequently die.
Cotton pesticides can enter our food chain through processed foods (from salad dressings to margarine and biscuits) that contain cottonseed oil, and through meat and dairy products since cows are often fed cottonseed meal.
Over 45% of all conventional cotton grown in the US is genetically engineered.
Conventional cotton is bad for our health, damaging to the workers who produce it, and destructive to the environment.
Over 8,000 synthetic chemicals are routinely used at some stage during a conventional garments’ production.

5 reasons to give organic cotton a go!

Eliminates hazardous pesticides
Gives power to farmers not GM companies
Helps farmers feed their families and local community
Saves precious water and combats climate change
Protects you and your family’s skin from harmful chemicals

why do we love organic cotton?

Greenfibres has been selling eco goods and garments for over 15 years. We specialise in offering customers the most natural clothing and bedding, which protects the producers, it protects the environment, it even protects yourself as conventional cotton can have many thousands of chemical residues on them which will soak into your skin and can cause allergies.

If you want to make a positive change, and support a better future, then start with small changes in making your lifestyle a little bit healthier by switching to organic cotton. It’s strong, long lasting and will biodegrade once you’ve finished using it, so you can feel really good about what you wear.

Organic cotton is grown and produced without the use of toxic chemicals which means that the health and safety of the growing communities and the risk to the environment is much less compared to conventional cotton.
Organic cotton does not get treated with any chemicals when being woven into fabric and does not get treated with toxic finishing chemicals such as formaldehyde which is used as a fire retardant or ‘easy iron’ finish on the garments.
Organic cotton does not allow the use of any genetically modified seeds which helps to protect natural biodiversity and ecology.

certification

Show your support of organic farming in general and join the Soil Association, the UK’s organic certification board for all things organic; food and clothing! By becoming a member, you increase the already huge support in this country for a positive change to sustainable, modern farming methods and eradicating heavy pesticide use, in the UK and globally.

Organic certification sets very strict social and economic conditions for farmers and buyers which gives the growers a fair wage, safe working conditions and a good price for their produce from buyers. This helps to reduce poverty within a farming community and protects against child labour and inhumane treatment.

want to know more?

http://www.cottonedon.org/ - the organic cotton initiative

Soil Association - campaigning for organic food and farming and sustainable forestry
http://www.soilassociation.org/

Global Organic Textiles Standard
http://www.global-standard.org/

Pesticide Action Network
http://www.pan-uk.org/

Labour Behind the Label
http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/

Friends of the Earth
https://www.foe.co.uk/what_we_do/the_bee_cause_home_map_39371

O Eco Textiles blog - wonderfully extensive blog on natural fabrics and the damage synthetic chemicals are causing to our health and the environment - founded by sisters Patty and Leigh Anne.
https://oecotextiles.wordpress.com/