- It starts out with cotton being grown all over the world: US, Uzbekistan, Australia, China, India and small African counties like Benin and Burkina Faso. Each year it produces about 25 million tons of cotton globally.
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| Cotton Crop all over the world |
- Cotton crops needs a lot of water for it to produce and therefore, communities aren't getting enough water to drink. If 25 million tons of cotton are produced globally, imagine how much gallons of water it would need.
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| Hunting water in Africa |
- Not only were using tons of water in the making of a t-shirt but the crops are coated in pesticides. These crops use about 25% of the world's insecticides. It turns out t-shirt making is also a pesticide-laden business.
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- Making matters worse all these pesticides being sprayed on crops also harm workers, the planet and neighboring communities. They suffer from nerve diseases and vision problems because of the number of toxic chemicals.
- Next step tons and tons of energy are needed to take it from raw cotton to a t-shirt (which is fueled by oil drilling or dirty coal). All this is to get the cotton to turn into thread.
- After having the thread you would bleach the cotton with chlorine even though it can become a neurotoxin and carcinogen. The cotton industry still going to use it even if they are to dye it.
Bleaching the cotton
- Next the cotton industry wants to make it easy as possible to take care, so they would spray it with formaldehyde knowing that it would cause respiratory problems, burning eyes, allergic skin reactions and even cancer. The use of formaldehyde makes the t-shirt soft, wrinkle-resistant, stain and odor resistant, fireproof, mothproof and even antistatic.
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| Another chemical being used in the cotton industry |
- Finally the fabric gets shipped to a factory or a sweatshop where workers work long days for low wages. Many are working in unsafe conditions and are teens.
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| Cartoon showing teen sweatshop labor |
- When it's all done the t-shirts get shipped to the United States and sold to the public for under $20.
- After reading The Story of Stuff, I believe that the value of a t-shirt should go up not like the price you see then for at the 99 cent stores, teens and adults have shed blood and sweat just to make these product. Not adding the fact that they are exposed to many chemicals in the factory they work at. Some will never recover from there illnesses. It's a never ending cycle. It's just not right. It may be cheap to us but not cheap to them.
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| The price should be higher than this |
