THE HIDDEN LIFE OF t-shirts - T-shirt manufacturing - Brief Article

Brando wore one, famously, in A Streetcar Named Desire. Now everybody's doing it. More than one billion T-shirts were produced in the United States last year alone, making the simple T the all-American choice for dressing on the cheap. But trace most T-shirts' life cycles--whether all cotton, synthetic, or a blend--and you'll find heavy hidden costs.

IT TAKES A POUND OF CHEMICALS to grow five pounds of cotton, the fiber most commonly used for T-shirts; cotton fields account for more than one-tenth of all pesticide use worldwide. Global cultivation of more than 37 billion pounds of cotton a year depletes soil and contaminates water and air. And cotton is a desperately thirsty crop: water diversion for Soviet fields was the main culprit in shrinking the Aral Sea to less than half its former size.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE "MIRACLE" SYNTHETICS? The generic polyester and nylon fibers used in some T-shirts don't just contribute to the burning of fossil fuels, they're actually made from them; every polyester fiber is spun solidified petroleum. Synthetic-fiber manufacture involves the production and processing of oil, gas, and chemicals, all of which use water and energy and pollute the air. It also dumps solvents, mineral oils, spent acids, and caustics into our water.

BIOENGINEERED COTTON raises the dual specter of more chemicals and mightier pests. Herbicide-resistant crops, such as Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" cotton, allow farmers to spray higher quantities of toxic glyphosate without hurting their harvest--though the drift might wither all other plant life downwind. In 1997, Roundup Ready cotton was planted on about 800,000 U.S. acres, and Monsanto estimates plantings will total 3 million acres for 1998.

YOUR T-SHIRT'S BRIGHT teal or hot-pink color might lose its appeal if you knew where it came from. Chemical dyes frequently include the toxic heavy metals chrome, copper, zinc, and nickel, and sometimes contain known or suspected carcinogens. Even natural dyes, because of their poor colorfastness, are often accompanied by heavy metals in the mordant, or dye-fixing, agent.

AS FOR THAT SILK-SCREENED LOGO for your company softball team: the most commonly used inks are plastisol, a form of polyvinyl chloride. The production and disposal of PVC release carcinogenic, hormone-disrupting dioxins into the environment.

WHAT CAN A CONSUMER DO? Choose T-shirts made of 100 cotton organic cotton, which is grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. The rates of water use and soil erosion for organic cotton are less than half those for conventional cotton. Look for cotton labeled "transitional," which means it's currently being grown without pesticide while awaiting organic certification. Or try unbleached, undyed, untreated cotton, or cotton that's been bred to grow in subtle earth colors. Have your logo silk-screened with water-based inks.

For more information: The Organic Cotton Directory, a joint publication of the Organic Fiber Council and the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), lists growers, brokers, manufacturers, and retailers. You can get one for $15 by calling (415) 981-6205 or via e-mail at mreeves@panna.org. (Pesticide Action Network also has a new list of companies selling organic-cotton T-shirts, some of which will silk-screen a design for an additional fee.) Or ask Mothers & Others and the Sustainable Cotton Project for their Consumer's Guide to Organic Cotton; call (888) ECO-INFO or e-mail mothers@mothers.org.

Mindy Pennybacker is the editor of The Green Guide, a news-letter published by Mothers & Others for a Livable Planet.

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