Background: The unethical clothing industry

The textile industry has tremendous negative impacts on the environment, health and livelihood of cotton farmers and workers.

Pressure to produce quickly increasing quantities of cheap textiles has led the industry to adopt some of the most unethical trade practices on the planet. Sweatshop practices have been denounced very successfully in the past 10 years, and you are probably aware of the unacceptable working conditions, which have been the norm in many manufacturing mills in the developing world, such as long working hours, low wages, and child labor. As a result, your expectations as a consumer have forced popular brands to look into the conditions in which their products are manufactured.

On the other hand, the negative environmental and social impact of fiber production and fiber processing are only starting to be addressed. Most consumers are still unaware of how severe and wide-ranging are the problems. Those that do, have contributed to the growth of the organic movement. And while it is true that cotton can be produced in an environmentally friendly way (ORGANIC), while contributing to alleviate poverty in some of the least developed countries (FAIR TRADE), in practice, this is not what we mostly observe today.

The major textile certification schemes are Organic, Fair Trade, and other “Eco Labels”.
In order to understand what these standards are designed for, and what an organic or fair trade cotton T-shirt means, it is important to know how cotton textile is made.

How are T-shirts made?

There is a negative impact to conventional cotton production. Cotton is grown commercially using a large amount of pesticides and herbicides, toxic chemicals designed, as the name suggests, to kill pests, insects, weeds, fungus, or any other kind of living things. Most cotton is also grown on poorly managed soils, which would be almost sterile without large amounts of synthetic fertilizers. More insecticides are sprayed on cotton than on any other major crop. Many problems are associated with this production method. Severe negative impacts include: loss of biodiversity and damage to ecosystems and wildlife, depletion of precious natural resources such as water and soil, and heavy contamination of water bodies. The ecological devastation of the Aral Sea area in central Asia, one of the most visible ecological disasters on the planet, almost entirely due to cotton production, symbolizes cotton’s environmental impacts.

Other impacts include poisoning (sometime fatal) of farmers, and intolerable indebtedness of poor farmers trapped on the “pesticide treadmill”. In some areas, the cost of chemicals is now reaching 60% of farmers’ production costs. The use of pesticides on small-scale cotton farms in developing countries has unacceptable negative impacts on the health of farmers and their families, and on their environment. On such farms, the level of training required to avoid hazards when using pesticides is seldom attainable. The necessary protective equipment is almost never used because of its lack of availability and its prohibitive price, and is inappropriate for use in tropical climates.

The positive impact of organic cotton production

However, cotton can be grown following the strict principles of organic agriculture. Organic agriculture uses no synthetic chemical pesticides, no synthetic fertilizers, and no Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). Organic fertilizers (such as manure) and plant-based pest management products (such as neem or garlic extract) are used. However, organic agriculture is not only a mere substitution of synthetic inputs with natural inputs. The major principle is to restore a natural balance within farms, with healthy and well-structured soils, rich in organic matter. In such an environment, the pests (any living things which damage the crop) are not systematically destroyed by poisons, but are kept under control by their natural predators. Biodiversity (the diverse range of living species: plants, animals, microorganisms) and agro-diversity (the diverse range of crops planted by the farmer, as well as livestock) are integral parts of an organic farm.

The organic cotton fiber that is harvested is similar to most conventional cotton fiber, except that it is guaranteed non-GM, and is not contaminated with pesticides. The main difference is that the ecosystem where it has been produced has not been damaged, and chemicals have not poisoned the farmer and his or her family.
However, the word ‘organic’ only refers to a guarantee on the growing stage of the cotton fiber, and not on the processing or the manufacturing, and there is still a long way from the fiber to a T-shirt.

Fiber processing

There are many stages required to process cotton from fibers to fabrics. The fibers are cleaned, carded (combed), spun into yarn, coated with starches or chemicals, woven into fabric (or knitted in the case of a T-shirt), cleaned up from their coating and their natural wax, bleached, immersed in concentrated caustic soda, dyed or printed, and chemically treated for easy care and other properties. All these stages require a large number of chemicals of various toxicity and hazards. Some of these chemicals threaten the health of workers, while others cause environmental pollution from the mills’ waste-water. Finally, many of these chemicals are found as residues in the finished product, and some of them may affect the health of consumers, and are suspected to cause allergies, eczema, and even cancers. In order to address those processing and manufacturing stages, a handful of organizations, mostly organic certification agencies, have developed their own private voluntary “organic” or “sustainable” standards for textile, and are certifying finished products according to those standards.

Such organic certification agencies and their textile processing scheme include the Soil Association and the Control Union International (aka SKAL International); the new GOTS will encompass those. And so, what we commonly call in Europe an “organic T-shirt” is a T-shirt made with certified organic cotton fiber, and processed according to those textile processing standards. The certification agency then authorizes the manufacturer to add its logo (or mark, or symbol) on the T-shirt’s label or their marketing literature. This is essential in order to recognize an Organic T-shirt.