This article is part of a series of explanations of fashion’s pressing need for more environmentally-conscious business, sourcing, and production methods. In understanding the fabric, most see color, content, weave, texture, durability, warmth, etc.–not water. Many supply chain elements determine if a material is environmentally friendly or not.
This article is part of a series of explanations of fashion’s pressing need for more environmentally-conscious business, sourcing, and production methods.
Most people think of fabric in terms of color, content, and weave. They also consider durability, warmth, and texture. But they don’t see water. Many supply chain elements go into determining whether or not the fabric is “sustainable.” But this Sustainability 101 discussion will focus on the H2O component.
According to The Conscious Challenge, textile production annually absorbs 93 billion cubic meters of water. This is the equivalent of 37,000,000 Olympic swimming pools and represents 4 percent of the global freshwater withdrawal. The clothing industry accounts for two-thirds.
The numbers that are less than shocking will shock you. It takes 700 gallons (about 2,700 liters) of water to make one cotton shirt. That’s enough to allow one person to consume eight cups of water per day for at least two or three years. It takes 2,000 gallons to make a pair of jeans. This is enough water for a person to consume eight cups of coffee per day for ten years. Note: This number includes the water used to grow cotton.
The numeric reporting can indeed be a bit sloppy. WWF states that it takes 20,000 liters (5.283 gallons of water) to produce one kilogram of cotton (2.2 pounds), which is equal to one T-shirt and one pair of jeans. It’s still a lot if you consider that every year, over 2 billion t-shirts are sold around the world. That means 700 gallons for each cotton t-shirt x 1.2 million cotton t-shirts (60 percent of t-shirts are made from synthetic fibers).
Fashion has a drinking water problem. This is a fact that is hard to accept when water is a resource so precious and diminishing. In China, 80-90% of fabric, yarn, and plastic-based fibers are produced in regions that already have a shortage or stress due to water. Cotton farming in Uzbekistan used so much water that the Aral Sea dried up within 50 years.
Why is there so much water
1. Water is needed to irrigate and grow plant-based fibers such as cotton, linen, and hemp. This process pollutes the water when pesticides from crops drain into rivers and then oceans. The production of synthetic fibers made from oil, such as polyester, is a less obvious cause of water pollution and overuse of water.
Synthetic fibers and fabrics are produced using a chemical-intensive process. This results in significant amounts of waste, which end up polluting the water.
2. After harvest, it is necessary to use water to wash the fibers and fabrics. Cotton is not immediately white or clean; it needs to be bleached and rinsed. Wool, cashmere, angora, alpaca, etc. Also, the fibers must be cleaned of bacteria and dyed. We should also consider the water consumed by animals that are raised for their fur. The washing of fabrics softens them, especially those that are stiffer, like linen or hemp. Synthetics should be cleaned of excess chemicals. Leather production, which we haven’t mentioned in this article, as well as washing and tanning of leather, requires huge quantities of water.
3. Then there is the dyeing of textiles, which usually requires water. And then comes the rinsing. Textile dyeing, which is often disposed of in ditches, rivers, and streams after the dyeing process, is the second largest polluter of freshwater. Each year, the dyeing process consumes enough water to fill two million Olympic-sized pools. River Blue, a film about denim mills in China and around the world that dye and pollute waterways, traces this process.
Textiles continue to use water even after production. Let’s not forget to mention the water we use for washing our clothes. Globally, washing clothes in washing machines requires an estimated 20 billion cubic meters more water each year. (For this reason, certain sustainability-minded fashion brands like Reformation advocate washing clothes less so as to use less water. It turns out that being a bit dirty is both clean and environmentally friendly.
Another problem with post-production/consumption washing is the fact that in addition to soaps and chemicals, washing synthetic fabrics also emits microplastics into our water supplies. Microplastics or microfibers are tiny pieces of plastic that never degrade. With 60 percent of modern garments being made from polyester, this is the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles. Around 35 percent of microplastics found in waterways are from synthetic textiles such as polyester.
The fashion industry accounts for one-fifth of all industrial water contamination worldwide.
What are our options, then?
Textiles that are less resource-demanding can be adopted. Some fabrics, like bast fabrics and linen, require less water for their initial crops. According to the European Confederation of Linen and Hemp, a linen t-shirt uses 6.4 liters compared to cotton shirts, which purported 2,700 liter/700 gallons. Hemp uses 50% less water than cotton per season.
Prioritizing organic fibers is also a good idea.
It is important to find more appropriate ways of disposing of bleach and dye vats and to avoid dumping harmful dyes in large waterways. This doesn’t just mean abandoning dyes into the ground, as eventually, the paint will find its way to the water. We need to prioritize the use of nontoxic paints because we don’t want a world without color just yet. Some conscious brands choose not to bleach whites. This eliminates the chemical process and washing.
We can also continue to prioritize the development and use of recycled fabrics. These fabrics are made from pre-existing material rather than requiring a massive amount of water for the production of new natural fibers or polyesters. Even these fabrics can need washing and dyeing. It isn’t easy to reduce any industry because cotton farmers rely on high cotton sales for their livelihood.
Even small conservation efforts are important and urgently required.
