CLEAN UP OR DIE

Introduction

The clothing, shoe and textile industry is one of the largest in the world. It is responsible for enormous pollution and environmental destruction. The industry uses more water than any other, apart from agriculture. It discharges massive quantities of toxic chemicals into the environment including huge amounts of dioxins (the world´s number one pathogen), from bleach, lycra, PVC and heavy metals in dyes and leather tanning. It uses huge amounts of energy in the form oil and electricity - used in manufacturing and the production of synthetics - and in shipping and air travel. It is responsible for enormous CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions and must be considered a significant contributor to climate change.

Labour issues

It employs a billion people: (one in six of the world´s population). Labour and pay conditions for millions of garment, shoe and textile workers are appalling. Many cotton farmers are living in conditions worse than slavery and in its quest for cheaper and cheaper manufacturing prices it is now condemning people across the world to terrible lives. At the same time it creates unemployment in Western economies, with manufacturing job flight to cheap labour areas in countries with appalling human rights records like China, Burma, Philippines and Mexico.

The fact that China was allowed into the World Trade Organisation beggars belief and is also one of the great missed opportunities of the 20th century to turn a police state into a democracy.

Across the developing world at least a thousand free trade zones have been created. Known as Export Processing Zones (EPZ´s) and employing over 27 million workers, they are industrial areas, where, typically factory owners pay no tax, the minimum wage is suspended and safety is neglected.

"The governments of poor countries offer tax breaks, lax regulations and the services of a military willing to crush labour unrest" (Naomi Klein).

Twelve to eighteen-hour shifts and seven-day weeks are the norm and trade unions are illegal. It is possible in many places for a worker to work 12 hours a day and take home less than $2. Workers are predominately young women; pregnancy is discouraged and enforced abortions are common.

In many factories peoples health is put in jeopardy on a daily basis: the wages are low, working days are long, living conditions are cramped, and women are particularly vulnerable to violence and sexual harassment. There is little job security, and no access to health care or maternity leave. Labour rights are under such severe assault inside the zones that there is little chance of workers earning enough to adequately feed themselves, let alone stimulate the local economy.

It´s very difficult to find hard numbers published for ethical issues, as often the hard evidence is not available for public consumption. The complex supply chain which exists within the garment industry in notoriously difficult to monitor. However, for a look at what many leading UK retailers found when they examined the working conditions of their Chinese suppliers, see The Independent´s Shop until they drop article.

The clothing industry continues to demand shorter lead times and lower prices, further pressurising workers.

Conventional Cotton Farming

In the agriculture of natural fibres, wool isn´t great as it is difficult to farm sheep without the use of some pesticides and herbicides. Pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilisers have a negative effect on the environment and are all by-products of the petrochemical industry, but where it really hits rock bottom is in conventional cotton farming.

Cotton is 10% of world agriculture and uses 25% of world pesticides. Pesticides are directly derived from World War 2 nerve gases [Pesticide Action Network (PAN)]. The situation of cotton agriculture in the developing world, involving 400 million farmers, is catastrophic. Pesticides cause 20,000 deaths per year from accidental poisonings [World Health Organisation (WHO)], 1 million long-term acute poisonings per year [PAN], 200,000 suicides per year (due to debt for pesticides) [PAN]. PAN estimates the real figures are much higher: upwards of a million deaths and three million long term poisonings. Most deaths occur in the third world where there are few to no doctors, let alone hospitals. Conventional cotton agriculture is additionally responsible for colossal greenhouse gas emissions due to chemical fertilisers, desertification and long-term contamination of the water supply.

Cotton is a very important export crop for many African and developing countries. In Mali, for instance, it is the second largest export by value after gold. In theory it is an excellent cash crop bringing in lots of foreign currency and providing a livelihood for the 10 to 11 million farmers across Africa involved, giving them enough money to feed themselves, school their children, and afford healthcare. This is totally possible but unfortunately it is not the case right now.

To grow cotton, before planting, farmers need a contract with the brokers to buy their cotton when it´s harvested. As part of the contract they have to agree to buy the seeds and the pesticides from the broker. If they don´t have the money the brokers have set up banks that will lend them the money to buy the pesticides, at 10% interest. The loan must be repaid within a year: if they can´t repay the loan because their crop fails due to lack of rain, the banks foreclose and take their tools and bicycles, leaving them to continue farming. They leave their land for the cities, sending a little money home, and on their occasional returns to their villages often bringing HIV with them as well.

Developing world farmers are given virtually no information on the dangers of the pesticides - often banned in Europe and the US - which they are sold, including the need to wear protective clothing. The pesticides are often changed without notice. For example, in four West African countries the pesticides being used were recently changed from a parathyroid to an organochlorine (endosulfan) because of the problems with pest resistance, without any warnings to the farmers of the increased toxicity of the new chemicals. Nearly 100 people are known to have died in just one region in the last two seasons as a result of this, with over 220 serious poisonings. The deaths are continuing, including the case of a farmer who clearly knew that the chemicals he was using to spray his crops were deadly. One day on his return from work knowing his clothes were contaminated from poison but with no other facilities for safe storage away from his family, he put his clothes on the roof of his house. That night it rained and the water from the roof ran into the containers used to catch drinking water. The next morning their parents took water from these containers for the children to drink and wash. Some minutes later, they began to have headaches, nausea and convulsions. Although they were taken urgently to the health centre for treatment, all four children died within about 20 hours. [PAN]

Cotton prices are at a low not seen since the depression of the 1930s due to US, EU and Chinese cotton subsidies. Unless developing world farmers can farm cotton organically they can´t make a living from it and will be forced to abandon cotton farming altogether.

If farmers grow cotton organically they increase their revenue 50% because of a 40% drop in the cost of inputs (fertilizers and pesticides), and a 20% premium for organic cotton. It enables them to feed themselves, school their children, afford healthcare, and dig wells. By making agriculture viable it helps stop migration to the cities and thereby helps stop the spread of HIV.

Good nutrition is also a key factor in managing HIV. In some Sub-Saharan countries HIV infections are up to 40% of the population. At present insufficient food is grown locally. At the height of the growing season villagers are practically starving because they are forced to turn their traditional food farming lands over to cotton by their colonial masters, and are ignorant of many of the food crops that they could grow. Organic cotton needs to be rotated with other crops to avoid pest build up. An added plus of growing cotton organically is local food and local food security. Any food grown / rotated with organic cotton will also be pesticide free, providing the local community with high quality nutrition.

On a trip to Mali in 2003 I asked a farmer, "What it the downside of growing conventional cotton?". He replied, "When we have sold our crop we have nothing left". I asked, "What is the upside of growing cotton organically?". He said, "When we have sold the crop all the money is ours and we have our health".

The fashion industry as a whole is too lazy, too ignorant and too disinterested in fair trade and the environmental issues surrounding its sourcing of raw materials and manufacturing. It makes too much money from the low cost of outsourced cheap labour to be interested in making a change. Only pressure from the consumer in the form of boycott of unacceptable materials and manufacturing processes can make it change.

The industry is unwilling to change the way it works. People say that organic cotton will be too expensive, but the truth is that the value to the farmer of the cotton in a t-shirt is 4-5% of the retail value, so if he gets 20% more it puts 1% on the price of a t-shirt. This is hardly a prohibitive in cost, and it can make the difference between survival and the extinction of eleven million farmers in Africa and a further 90 million farmers in the rest of the developing world.

People ask, "Can ethical and environmental clothing become as popular as organic food?" - Why not? 75% of Marks & Spencer´s 15 million customers have ethical and environmental concerns when purchasing [source: M&S]. It may be a lot easier to care about people you love than have concern for people of a different culture who live 3,000 miles away, but it needs to be even more popular and firmly entrenched in the mainstream, as the issues it deals with, affect our global environment and economies, the health of 100 million farmers, our rivers, eco systems, seas, climate change, and the lives of a sixth of the world´s population.

By insisting on organic cotton and fair pay for garment workers and by paying 1% more for a t-shirt, you can change the world and make it a better and safer place.