Conscientious Ethical Fashion Magaziine

Cotton was once the natural choice but with growing awareness of the waste, pollution and energy it requires to produce it, many ethical shoppers are turning away.

So is it better to buy local Australia cotton or foreign Organic cotton. It is not uneasy question to answer but below are some facts.

The cotton plant arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, but significant production did not occur until the early 1960s. Cotton is now the 4th largest rural export in Australia.

Water

90% of the cotton grown in Australia is irrigated using some 12% of Australia’s irrigation water mostly on the Darling-Murray system draining the natural flow into the Murray. It contributes to the problem but it is one of a half dozen crops and can’t be blamed alone. The other crops however all produce food products that will take a lot less energy and chemicals to reach the shops.

The crop

Three products result - cottonseed, lint and waste. 55% of ginned cotton is made up of cottonseed and pressed for a variety of products such as cooking oil, plastics, cosmetics, margarine and insecticides and can also be used as seeds for the next cotton crop.

Lint makes up approximately 35% of the cotton. Once the lint has been separated it is compacted into bales and transported to spinning mills to produce cotton.

Lint makes up approximately 35% of the cotton. Once the lint has been separated it is compacted into bales and transported to spinning mills to produce cotton.

A small proportion (GM) waste may be fed to livestock in addition to their usual diet. (But it is nothing compared to wholly GM corn fed US livestock).

Farms

There are approximately 800 cotton-growers in Australia, 72% based in New South Wales, and the remaining 28% in Queensland. Australia has one of the highest cotton yields, 1,600 kg/ha in the world approximately 2.6 times the world average.

Some 1,800 small and medium-sized enterprises grow cotton in Australia on farms typically 500 to 2000 hectares in size.

Most Australian cotton is GM (genetically modified) cotton, developed to use less water then traditional varieties.

Most Australian cotton is also grown on mixed farm, crops are rotated so from a farming point of view it is efficient apart from the water draining rivers and it’s contribution salination hundreds of kilometers away. The farmers might also keep livestock and rotate the cotton with wheat or canola etc.

GM cotton also requires less insectides then overseas strains and is far more water efficient and producing higher yields than overseas strains.

Export and Manufacturing

90% of Australian cotton is exported for manufacturing (and a small proportion of that returning as clothing blended with third world or US cotton).

Ethical choices

Cotton uses an enormous amount of energy compared to food crops on the Murray-Darling in order to reach the retailer. It seems like a waste of water when there are better natural environments abroad, however, on closer examinations the cotton industry in the third world using a quarter of the worlds chemical insecticide and is cruel to the environment and dangerous to the labour.

Murray-Darling food crops are exported one way as generally the country of destination is the country of consumption (using less fuel on transportation and manufacturing).

Organic, Australian cotton is a relatively acceptable choice and Australian farmers are using the best practices possible but even this is not water efficient. Organic strains, if not GM strains will use more water.

Other organic cottons imports or 100% produced and manufactured in Australia may also be a better choice than cotton of unknown origin.

Beware of ‘Australian made cotton ‘ if it is not 100% Australian made. Australian cotton sent abroad for manufacturing and mixed with other cottons and imported back is the worse choice. (*s

Ever thought about how they make those $5 dollar t-shirts, leggings and hoodies? How can a large fruit juice and a t-shirt be valued at the same worth? There's the crop and labourers, the textile and labourers, the design, the dyes, the factory workers, the transportation across the word and import/ export costs, there's the retail space and local salespeople cost etc.... How could anyone, even in the poorest countries in the world survive on the few cents their share would break down to. Rebember this $5-tees are not a sale at loss to the company, they have become a regular fixture in malls.

The following case study does not refer to Australia but to the cheap tees in US variety stores. However, it is food for thought. Alot of shopping ethically relies on common senses at the point of sale.

The target of Jordan’s labor abuses are the more than 125,000 guest workers in Jordan from Bangladesh, India, China, Sri Lanka and an assortment of other developing countries. The workers are generally promised that they will be earning at least US $120 per month plus overtime pay, free food and lodging. The workers manufacture apparel for American clothing retailers Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Gloria Vanderbilt, Mossimo, Kohl’s, GAP, JC Penney, *Target, Liz Claiborne, Faded Glory, Chestnut Hill, Bill Blass, and Victoria’s Secret. Several of these American retailers such as Wal-Mart and K-Mart are not new to this Hall of Shame.

Given as a reward for Jordan’s 1994 peace accord with Israel, the Jordan Free Trade Agreement flashed the green light to Jordan apparel manufacturers who were eager to sell to the giant U.S. apparel retailers. U.S. clothing retailers were delighted to find a cheap and willing source for inexpensive garments.

When the ’guest workers’ arrive in Jordan, their employers strip them of their passports so they cannot leave or travel within Jordan. All items in their work contract such as pay, hours and benefits are ignored. Pay is with held, workers work up to 20 hours per day, 7 days a week. They are feed bread, potatoes and cabbage and only allowed to bath once a week.

If the workers speak out to their employers about their conditions, they are often beaten; if they are able to contact Jordanian government labor officials, they are ignored; if they runaway, the Jordan police track them down, arrest them and put them in prison; and if they are especially troublesome to their employers, they are generally beaten and threatened with deportation.

When the garment workers are deported, they receive none of their back pay and they return to their home country worse than penniless but still have to repay the loans – interest plus principle – that they borrowed to purchase the work contract.

Often these large U.S. retailers send a team to visit the manufacturing companies and monitor labor conditions. These monitoring practices have proven to be ineffective and easy to deceive. The factory managers are informed when the monitors will arrive, labor records are hidden or falsified, and factory workers are often forced to clean the restrooms and factory floors to give the right impressions. Of course, all the horrors return after the monitoring team departs. Even when the monitor team actually finds problems, the factory owners have 120 days to apply cosmetic patches to the problems.

I put a '?' next Organic Cotton as although cotton is natural it requires so much water and is so mass produced and over exploited that it is now grown in numerous parts of the world with irrigation draining rivers.

Organic Cotton is massively better than none organic because organic strains can require less water (that may depend) and the processing does not use the massive amounts of dangerous chemicals.

It is the opinion of Ethical Shopper than cotton should be consider a luxury item and not something bought one season and thrown out the next. There are numerous alternative fabrics whose industries we should encourage through our purchases.

It is also the opinion of Ethical Shopper that cotton SHOULD be EXPENSIVE as it cost the Earth!