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How the production of an ordinary T-shirt affects enviroment? |
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by Malika Rustamova | 08-11-2020 18:57
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Global production has significantly boosted since 1994 and T-shirts are the most common garments in the world. Let's consider how it is produced and its impact on the environment. Firstly, cotton seeds are sown, irrigated, and grown for the fluffy bolls after harvested by machines. The cotton plants require a huge quantity of water - 2,700 liters of water are needed to produce the average t-shirt. Moreover, cotton uses more insecticides and pesticides than any other crop. These pollutants can be carcinogenic, harm the health of workers, and damage surrounding ecosystems. Once cotton bales leave the farms, textile mills ship them to a spinning facility, when using high-tech machines the cotton twisted into ropes. Then yarns are sent to the mill, where it is weaved into sheets of rough grayish fabric and treated with heat and chemicals until it turns soft and white. Here, the fabric is dipped into commercial bleaches and azo dyes which make up the vivid coloring in most textiles. Unfortunately, some of them extremely harmful, usually these chemicals cause widespread contamination when released as toxic wastewater in rivers and oceans. However, there are T-shirts that are made from organic cotton grown without pesticides and insecticides but it accounts a very low percentage. Next, the finished cloth travels to factories in order to be stitched into t-shirts. After the manufacture, all these t-shirts travel by ship, train, and trucks - a process that gives an enormous cotton footprint. Some countries produce their own clothing domestically which cut out this polluting stage. Finally, in the consumer's house, the T-shirt goes through one of the most resource-intensive phrases of its lifetime. The average household does nearly 400 loads of laundry per year, each using 40 gallons of water. Also washing machines and dryers use energy. All these turned fashion into the second-largest polluted in the world after oil. However, there are things we can do: try to look for textiles made from recycled or organic fabrics, line dry to save resources. Instead of throwing them away - donate, recycle, or reuse them as cleaning rags. Additionally, we might ask ourselves how many t-shirts and articles of clothing will we consume over our lifetime and try to decrease numbers. Sources: https://images.app.goo.gl/cnph1o9nBvM8qCHQA https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-life-cycle-of-a-t-shirt-angel-chang
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5 Comments
Greetings malika
I hope you are doing well
Thank you so much for this report
Keep writing
Green cheers
Regards
Asmita Gaire
Posted 13-02-2021 18:47
Hello Malika!
It's your SJ mentor.
Thank you for introducing your report regarding the influence of apparel production.
Growing cotton requires quite massive amount of water, pesticides.
When dying the clothes chemical products are using and it can be harmfully affected to workers.
But synthetic textiles which comes from refinement of crude oil is not the solution which also destroy the nature.
As you said it is ideal to purchase recycled organic fabrics which it is quite expensive.
In order to save money as well as resources, reusing secondhand products are important.
Let's keep our actions to put on clothes longer period and save the planet.
Hope things are fine with you.
Green cheers!
Best regards,
SJ mentor.
Posted 23-11-2020 11:36
Hello Malika,
this is your mentor WooJoo.
Thank you for sharing such an informative report.
Nowadays, many clothing industries are using recycled plastic bottles to produce garment.
Also, in the US, there is a industry called Jean Innovation center where they searched and developed techniques to produce jeans, reducing 90% of water usage and using other eco friendly resources for production.
The image clearly shows that we definitely should consume less clothing, reuse and recycle them.
Keep writing
Best wishes,
WooJoo
Posted 11-11-2020 18:24
Great report and hats off for the work.
Posted 08-11-2020 23:15
hello Malika
thanks for such an informative report .
Obviously ,clothes production has affected the environment.
keep sharing
Warm Regards ,
Shobha
Posted 08-11-2020 19:46