Eco Friendly Clothing

Clothes may seem perfectly innocent at first when it comes to their environmental impact, but the reality is quite different. Cotton accounts for 25% of global pesticide use. Pesticides pollute waterways, soil and cause great damage to human and non-human health, even death. Eco friendly clothing is the answer to that. These usually are made of organic fabrics or, in some cases, from recycled materials that may include PET bottles and rubber from inner tubes, to name but a few.

Recycling is at the center of the eco friendly clothing industry. It has two major environmental benefits. The first is that it decreases demand for new fabrics, and therefore decreases pressure on the environment. The second is that it lessens the burden on landfills. There are several types of fabrics being used to replace cotton. Organic hemp is becoming more popular but it more often found in accessories such as bags and footwear. Hemp requires less water to grow than cotton and bamboo (which requires lots of chemicals, therefore it’s not as green as previously thought). It’s not legal to grow hemp in the U.S. so it is mostly imported from China.

Another recent addition to sustainable textiles is flax, which more often grown for its grain. But its fiver can be turned into a cotton-like type of fabric. Its green credentials include low water need and fewer pesticides than cotton. Besides, it is cheap to produce. More recently, eco fashion designers have started to shun leather due to the environmental damage caused by tanneries. Some documentaries have shown highly toxic chemicals being dumped into the environment in places like India, where the tanning industry concentrates. It is extremely harmful to the environment and health. There are several types of faux-leather in the market these days so there’s no need to use animal leather any more.

Other designers also avoid fur for animal welfare reasons. Animals killed for fur are trapped in the wild while others are raised in fur farms in appalling conditions.