The Life Cycle of a T-Shirt

Process

Impact

Other "Fun" Facts

Ways to help

Annually, we sell and buy 2,000,000,000 t-shirts globally.

Normal shirt begins on a farm in America, China. or India

Cotton seeds are sown, watered, and grown

Self driving machines harvest the cotton bolls

A cotton gin separates the fluffy bolls from the seeds

Cotton lint gets pressed into 225kg bales

Cotton plants require a lot of water and pesticides

2,700 liters of water = 30+ bathtubs = average t-shirt

Cotton uses more insecticides and pesticides than any other crop

Pollutants can be carcinogenic (able to cause cancer)

Pollutants used to grow cotton crops

Harms workers

Harms ecosystems

Can cause cancer

T-shirts made out of organic cotton make up <1% of the worlds cotton produced

Once bales are ready, textile mills send the cotton to a spinning facility. Usually these are in China or India.

Machines treat the cotton by:

Blending

Carding

Combing

Pulling

Stretching

Twisting

Small ropes of yarn called slivers

Sent to the mill

Knitting machines weave the slivers into sheets of rough fabric, which are not completely white

Treated with heat and chemicals till soft and white

Fabric gets dipped into bleaches and azo dyes

Bleaches and azo dyes make up the colouring of about 70% of textiles

Dyes used in textiles

Some contain carcinogens such as cadmium, lead, chromium, and mercury

Textile factory waste

More harmful chemicals and compounds can be spread when released as toxic waste water and air pollutants

In some more advanced countries they can grow and produce cotton that has barely touched a human hand, until the sewing part of manufacturing a t-shirt

The finished cloth travels to factories, typically in Bangladesh, China, India, or Turkey

Human labor is used to stitch up the t-shirts, because it is too complex for a machine right now

Bangladesh has surpassed China as the world's biggest exporter of cotton t-shirts

Bangladesh employs 4.5 million people in the t-shirt industry

Some employees like the ones in Bangladesh that sew shirts together typically face poor conditions and low wages

All the t-shirts travel by ship, train, and truck to be sold in high-income countries

Transporting the cotton and t-shirts

Huge carbon footprint

Some countries produce and sell cotton and t-shirts domestically which helps reduce carbon footprint

Clothing production = 10% of global carbon emissions

And it's growing...

Cheaper clothes + public's demands = boost of global production by 400% from 1994 - 2014

80,000,000,000 garments per year

Once the t-shirt reaches the consumer, it goes through one of the most resource-intensive parts of its life

Using water, energy and soap to wash it

Fashion is the second largest polluter after oil

Shop secondhand

Look for clothes made from organic or recycled fabrics

Line dry clothes instead of using the dryer

Wash clothes less

Donate, recycle, or reuse old clothes as patchwork fabrics or cleaning rags