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