Not Your Typical Book About the Environment

Not Your Typical Book About the Environment — page 9
An Sil Oh H 0 U U HOW THIRSTY ARE YOUR CLOTHES How do we make everyone's wardrobe as eco friendly as it is fashionable Great style color comfort price the last thing you think about when you're shopping is how much your clothes drink But many of your favorite clothes have an almost unquenchable thirst Nearly 2 5 billion T shirts are sold on Earth each year Unlike synthetic fabrics such as fleece the fibers in your 100 cotton T shirts and denim jeans were grown not manufactured Conventionally grown cotton is intensively farmed to get the highest yield that s the biggest harvest for the smallest unit of land And that cotton is one thirsty plant It takes twenty five bathtubs of water to grow enough cotton for one lonely T shirt It also takes lots of oil to power heavy farm machinery and make fertilizers Plus even more oil is needed to create the astonishing amounts of human made chemical pesticides used to prevent insects mice and other animals from damaging the