Planning to eco-shop? Consider that:
- Organic cotton is just as soft and durable as conventional, but it doesn’t require two-thirds of a pound of pesticide to make one pair of jeans. According to the EPA, five of the top nine pesticides used in conventional cotton production in the United States (including cyanide, propargite, and trifluralin) are known cancer-causing chemicals. That should keep you buying organic!
- Bamboo is the world’s fastest-growing plant. Bamboo fabric is sustainably grown, completely biodegradable, naturally pest- and insect-resistant, absorbs 400 percent more greenhouse gases, and produces 35 percent more oxygen than trees (say that 10 times fast and we’ll give you a quarter). Especially when it’s mechanically—rather than chemically—processed, bamboo is a great fabric to seek out.
- Hemp is naturally insect-resistant, anti-microbial, and requires no herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizers to produce. Think about this: If the 1.4 billion t-shirts sold in American each year were replaced with hemp tees, the energy savings would equal 3.5 billion gigajoules and the water savings would equal 1.3 trillion gallons—enough water for half the U.S. population for an entire year.
