Clean Pure Cotton...

Cotton is generally portrayed as being a pure fibre that is healthy to wear.

Doctors will usually recommend to patients to wear cotton, especially if there is some skin problem.

Cotton is a natural fibre that breathes, whereas synthetic fabrics such as nylon and polyester – petro-chemical derivatives – do not, and can cause overheating that can lead to disease.

Recent reports indicate that the world-wide cotton industry pumps many millions of litres of potentially deadly chemicals into the growing and processing of cotton, every year.

Just how healthy is the cotton that is generally available in stores? What are the social and environmental costs of growing it? And should we be buying it at all?

Is organic cotton the way of the future?

To answer those questions, let’s look at a few aspects of the cotton industry.

Growing cotton conventionally
Cotton is the most chemical-intensive crop on the planet, accounting for approximately one quarter of all insecticide usage.

These highly toxic – potentially deadly - chemicals are not bio-degradable and finish up in our soils and waterways. Commonsense would tell us that we can’t continue to pump them out like this. They will eventually choke us and the other forms of life that share our planet with us. This is already happening.

For this I need the reports
It should be pointed out that the cotton industry is much more tightly regulated in Australia than it is in developing countries, however the chances that the T-shirt you just purchased came from Australian cotton are very slim. In fact, it probably needed over half a kilo of chemicals to grow it*

The processing of cotton conventionally into yarn and fabric is also chemically-intensive, requiring vast amounts of water that flush toxic waste into the ecosystem. Dyeing is another area of controversy, as many dyes contain heavy metals and known carcinogenic substances.

There are absolutely no controls over the chemical content of fabrics and garments that enter Australia. Most of them now come from China, where there is minimal awareness of these matters.

How safe are the products?
Any cotton product should be washed thoroughly before usage, unless it is certified organic.

Repeated washing will help, however some substances such as Formaldehyde are designed to persist and never completely wash out.

At Blessed Earth we deal with people who have allergies and who react to these chemicals, on a daily basis. From our experience we know that highly chemical-sensitive people can never wear cotton that has been grown conventionally, without having a reaction, no matter how many times it has been washed.

Growing cotton organically
Absolutely no chemicals are used in the conventional growing of cotton. It requires a different mindset, as the organic farmer works with nature, rather than seeking to control it. Less water is required as there are no chemical sprays to apply.

Cotton is now grown organically in many parts of the world, however the benchmark example of what can be achieved has to be in Egypt. It is an interesting story…

For centuries cotton was grown the natural way on the flood plains of the Nile Delta.

Sometimes there would be too much water and the crop would be ruined, so in the 1960’s, the Government built the Aswan dam to regulate water flow. They failed to take into account that there was no more alluvial flooding; the soils became increasingly infertile and crop yields went into decline.

The chemical giants stepped in with their solution of synthetic fertilizers and suggested that if you have to apply them mechanically, you might as well apply insecticides for the increasing numbers of Bol weevils and other pests.

It was around that time that the visionary, Dr Ibrahim Abouleish, began growing herbs and vegetables Bio-Dynamically (organically) on previously barren desert. He founded the SEKEM institute, SEKEM meaning vitality from the sun, and pretty soon it grew into a large corporation, employing thousands of people.

Dr Abouleish became alarmed at what was happening to the cotton industry. Aerial spraying had become the order of the day and the spray drift was affecting farmers who were trying to grow organically.

In 1993 Dr Abouleish, by then a highly respected businessman, approached the Government and offered to conduct some trials, to compare the yields from chemically grown cotton and cotton grown using Bio-Dynamic preparations. When the yields from the Bio-Dynamic crop were 30% higher, the Government agreed to ban all aerial spraying of crops in Egypt.

SEKEM set up an educative process encouraging the cotton growers of Egypt to convert to organic practices. That process continues to gather strength and today about half of the cotton grown in Egypt uses no chemicals at all.

What’s the solution?
There is a world-wide tendency towards cheap and fast. We see it in our food industry, and now we’re seeing it in clothing and bedding.

Cheap imports are flooding our country. When we buy them, we’re mindlessly contributing to the destruction of our world environment; of our health; and of the future of our children and their children.

The simple solution is to buy only clothing and bedding that is made from certified organic cotton.

At the moment it costs a little more –as does organic food – but the more we insist on it the more mainstream it will become. It will become the new normal.

That will encourage more growers around the world to convert to organic practices – to return to the natural way it was grown in the past.

And the world will be a better place…

Written by Raithe Handiman. Raithe is a partner in Blessed Earth, specialists in organic cotton and wool, clothing and bedding. www.blessedearth.com.au. Ph: 1300 135 589