One generally unknown fact is that conventional cotton crops use 3-5 times more pesticides than other conventional crops. Of all insecticides used globally each year, 25% are used on cotton crops. In the US it is now illegal to feed the "gin trash" (or leaves, stems and short fibers) of cotton crops to livestock because of the large amounts of pesticide residues. What do they do with gin trash? Well, it's used to make furniture, mattresses, tampons, swabs, and cotton balls. The creepiest part -- knowing that non-organic tampons sold are made from materials too pesticide soaked to feed to livestock (and they feed nearly EVERYTHING to livestock). Hmmm, I wonder where toxic shock syndrome comes from???
I've always prided myself on buying "natural" fibers when I shop for clothes or fabric. When I learned about the pesticide issue with cotton, I started looking at organic or oko-tex What are our options to avoid
Some good sources include sustainablecotton.org, the US Geological Survey, the Organic Trade Association, and a Palmer and Bromley Study.
Some good organic shopping sources? A Happy Planet (for mattresses, bedding, blankets, all things bedroom), Ecobaby (organic baby and toddler clothing and bedding), Blue Canoe (organic women's clothing and some baby), and Furnature (natural furniture -- the only site in this list I have not shopped from). Another fabulous source for mainstream women's and children's clothing is Hanna Andersson, which uses lots of organic and øko-Tex certified cotton in their clothing. Ecomall.com has a rather large list of retailers who sell organic cotton clothing as well.
