The secrets of the textile industry

As we know, fast fashion has gradually invaded our lives: we buy cheap clothes in shops or online, wear them a few times and renew them to keep up with the latest trends. We always want more and the figures show that consumers have bought more than 60% more clothes than 15 years ago and these clothes are thrown away twice as fast. To give you an idea, in 2016, over 100 billion items of clothing were sold worldwide. That's about 9.5 kg per capita in a single year. All this has consequences for us, for those who produce these clothes and for our environment. In this article you will learn all the secrets of the textile industry and discover tips on how to reduce your clothing consumption if you feel like it. 
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

As you know, we are big fans of LCA, Life Cycle Assessment. Let's use this approach to understand how this industry works and identify its consequences. Let's take the simplified life cycle of a garment and look at the different stages and their consequences: 

If you want to know more about life cycles, please check out our blog: "Ever heard of life cycle assessment or LCA?"  

The raw material of the T-shirt is cotton. The cotton plant is the plant that produces cotton. It is a plant that grows in a hot and humid climate. There are many species but only 4 of them have been domesticated by man. It can grow up to 10 metres high, but those cultivated by humans are about 1.5 metres tall.  It is a plant that has been cultivated for almost 5000 years. At present, it is the most widely produced natural fibre in the world, thanks to India, China and the United States.

But, at present, producing cotton is harmful for the planet because the cotton plant is quite sensitive to various diseases and pests, so farmers spray an average of 20 pesticide treatments per year on each plot. These pesticides are toxic and aggressive products that have been banned in Europe (such as Ethion or Imidacloprid). According to the WHO, cotton cultivation uses a quarter of the world's insecticides and 10% of the world's herbicides (which is huge, isn't it?), even though cotton cultivation represents only 2 to 3% of the cultivated land. These pesticides have many negative consequences for our health and for the planet, including risks of cancer, infertility, foetal malformations, etc. These pesticides have especially a consequence for the people who cultivate cotton and who have no other choice than to use these pesticides without protection (mask, gloves, etc.) because of a lack of means. For the environment, it also has consequences for animals: birds eat contaminated insects that can kill them. Pesticides also pollute the air and water...

There are alternatives such as organic cotton, but at the moment it only represents 1% of the total amount of cotton produced. Not everything is green for organic cotton either... we'll talk about that in a future blog.

If we had taken the example of a t-shirt made of polyester (which is not a natural material, it comes from oil), its ecological footprint during production would have been 2.5 times larger than that of cotton (which is already very large). 

To produce a nice T-shirt, the textile industry needs chemicals such as chromium, cadmium, copper, lead, etc. These products are used to soften the textile, wash it, dye it, etc. In Europe, there is legislation regarding the fate of these products but we know that our clothes are not produced in Europe. The legislation in the countries that transform the raw material is lighter and in practice these products end up in nature. The situation is often catastrophic, with water loaded with heavy metals flowing into the environment, contaminating animals, plants and humans alike. This water is used and drunk by the inhabitants and is used to irrigate local crops: a disaster for both the environment and health. 

According to the WHO, one million people worldwide are poisoned by cotton growing and 22,000 die each year. 

These products and pesticides are also found on the clothes we wear and are therefore potentially harmful to our health. 

In general, clothes are produced outside Europe but between the place where the cotton is grown, where the T-shirt is assembled, where it is dyed and where it is sold, there is a long way to go! It is estimated that on average a garment travels 65,000 km from the field to the point of sale (that's one and a half times around the world). This is not without consequences for our environment and in particular for our greenhouse gas emissions. 

Once we have bought our T-shirt, we will wear it and then wash, dry and iron it. This also has an environmental impact (up to 36% of the energy consumption over the entire life cycle of the T-shirt)! Obviously, not washing or ironing our clothes is not the solution but you will see in the following article some tips to reduce your environmental impact in this area.  

Once we have decided that our T-shirt no longer belongs in our home, what do we do with it? Forget it in a cupboard, throw it away, put it in the shed for DIY or garden work, or better still we give it to associations. These clothes are sorted and some will be reused to be worn again and some will be recycled to produce other things. However, recycling is far from being the norm because at the moment, 80% of clothes end up in landfills or are incinerated and I'm not even talking about the absolute scandal of new clothes, unsold, put in landfills by brands to avoid having to sell out... Fast fashion, when you hold us...  

As a consumer, we can try to do something. First of all, ask yourself before buying if I really need "this absolutely fabulous new piece but it's just a t-shirt, maybe quite similar to the one I wore yesterday"? If you already have one item of clothing like a black dress, for example, ask yourself, "do I really need a second one? "   

If you have decided that yes, it is a necessary purchase then try to look at eco-labels or organic cotton (usually this can be seen on the label).  

If you are interested, in a future blog I can tell you about new, more environmentally friendly types of textiles, as well as certifications for clothing that are interesting to remember... or to reject. You will get a taste of this blog with the following paragraph. 

There are also alternative brands that use materials other than cotton. Tencel, for example, is a wood-based material that is very promising. Indeed, no pesticides are used in the forests and the forests from which tencel comes from are sustainably managed forests in Europe (in other words, when a tree is cut down, it is replaced: this is guaranteed with the FSC label). We are not destroying the Amazonian forest with this tencel! The whole production process is done in an environmentally friendly way: no pesticides, no waste water, etc. Indeed, the process that transforms the wood fibre uses a non-toxic biological solvent (anime oxide). Only one company produces these products: Lenzing in Austria. This company has received a European Award for the Environment for the environmental performance of its process. However, this comes at a cost: tencel is sold at 16 euros per kilo compared to 7 euros per kilo for cotton with pesticides, which means a higher price in shops. But isn't that the real price we should be paying for all our clothes? Because let's be honest, paying 5 or 10 euros for a t-shirt is not normal. 

Once you have bought your T-shirt, washing, drying and ironing it also has an impact on the environment and there is something you can do about it here too! You can wait until the machine is full before turning it on, use environmentally friendly products to wash your clothes, buy machines that consume less energy, wash less often certain clothes that can be worn several times, wash at a low temperature, use a tumble dryer rather than an electric dryer, etc. Every action counts! 

Also try to give your clothes a new life: by giving them away or selling them. This will extend their life. 

It is really important to be careful with our consumption as the fashion industry produces 20% of the world's wastewater and 10% of humanity's carbon emissions. 

I hope you have enjoyed this article and learned a few things about the textile industry. This article is not intended to make us feel guilty but rather to inform us of the consequences of our clothing choices. I hope it will make you more vigilant about where your clothes come from and what happens to them.  

Don't hesitate to read our other blogs: Have you ever heard of life cycle assessment or LCA? How to do my zero waste shopping?  Gluten-free  coffee substitutes and many others to learn more about sustainable living. 

Titi the Elk  

Take care of yourself and your planet 

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