Folk & Fables: Denim and Chambray. Hooray!

1. Coral Lace Vintage , 2. Alacloth, 3. Asos

1. Asos - $50.91

Vs.

2. Katherine Thrifts - $14.00, 3. Top Shelf Vintage Co. - $12.00,
4. Poppies and Pines - 25.00, 5. New Day Rising Vintage - $15.00

Vintage Vs. Modern is a little diddy that I hope to make a weekly part of the blog. Compare the prices! Crazy, no? Now lets talk about the price we pay to produce a whole bunch of Monsanto cotton to make modern denim and chambray pieces...

  -Cotton is considered the world's 'dirtiest' crop due to its heavy use of insecticides, the most hazardous pesticide to human and animal health. Cotton covers 2.5% of the world's cultivated land yet uses 16% of the world's insecticides, more than any other single major crop (1).

  -Aldicarb, parathion, and methamidopho, three of the most acutely hazardous insecticides to human health as determined by the World Health Organization, rank in the top ten most commonly used in cotton production. All but one of the remaining seven most commonly used are classified as moderately to highly hazardous (1).

  -Aldicarb, cotton's second best selling insecticide and most acutely poisonous to humans, can kill a man with just one drop absorbed through the skin, yet it is still used in 25 countries and the US, where 16 states have reported it in their groundwater (1).

  -It can take almost a 1/3 pound of synthetic fertilizers to grow one pound of raw cotton in the US, and it takes just under one pound of raw cotton to make one t-shirt (4).

  -Nitrogen synthetic fertilizers are a major contributor to increased N2O emissions, which are 300 times more potent than CO2 as greenhouse gas (5), which is ominous for global warming as synthetic fertilizer use is forecasted to increase roughly 2.5 times by mid-century (6).

  -The cottonseed hull, where many pesticide residues have been detected, is a secondary crop sold as a food commodity. It is estimated that as much as 65% of cotton production ends up in our food chain, whether directly through food oil or indirectly through the milk and meat of animals (1).  

-Cottonseed and field trash is usually sold for animal feed. Studies in Brazil and Nicaragua have show traces of common cotton pesticides in cow milk, fueling concerns about chemical residues on the cottonseed (1).  

-Rural farmers lack the necessary safety equipment, protective clothing, and training for handling hazardous pesticides. In India, one in ten pesticide applications results in three or more reported health symptoms related to pesticide exposure (1).

  -Surveys show that rural cotton farmers often store pesticides in their bedrooms or in close proximity to their food and some even reuse pesticide containers for drinking water. These farmers and their families are at highest risk for acute pesticide poisoning as well as chronic effects (1)   

-Many processing stages result in large amounts of toxic wastewater that carry away residues from chemical cleaning, dyeing, and finishing. This waste depletes the oxygen out of the water, killing aquatic animals and disrupting aquatic ecosystems (8).

  -Fifty-five million pounds of pesticides were sprayed on the 12.8 million acres of conventional cotton grown in the U.S. in 2003 (4.3 pounds/ acre), ranking cotton third behind corn and soybeans in total amount of pesticides sprayed. (USDA)  

-Over 2.03 billion pounds of synthetic fertilizers were applied to conventional cotton in 2000 (142 pounds/acre), making cotton the fourth most heavily fertilized crop behind corn, winter wheat, and soybeans. (USDA)  

-The Environmental Protection Agency considers seven of the top 15 pesticides used on cotton in 2000 in the United States as "possible," "likely," "probable," or "known" human carcinogens (acephate, dichloropropene, diuron, fluometuron, pendimethalin, tribufos, and trifluralin). (EPA)

*The above tidbits were taken www.ota.com (you can find the sources on their website). 

I promise I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad for purchasing 10 $2.00 camis from Forever 21 (this may or may not have been something I did recently) but I am trying to learn more about living sustainably so that I can be more conscientious about the choices I make (I also promise I bought those camis before doing some google research for this blog post) and then share what I've learned with those who'd also like to be a bit conscientious...

1, 2, & 3. Anthropologie - Each priced @ $88.00
Vs.
4. JackNBoots - $38.00, 5. The Velvet Moon - $25.00, 6. Sally Jane Vintage - $28.00

"...Part of the problem is that neither manufacturers nor customers understand much about how and when clothing purchases degrade the environment, since these can occur anywhere from the harvest of cotton or the manufacture of synthetic fibers to how — and how often — the garment must be washed. “We’ve got fantastic standards when it comes to food, but it is all brand-new when it comes to clothes,” Mr. Barry admitted. “We have a lot to learn.”"

—Taken from The New York Times article, "Can Polyester Save the World?"