Together with our seller Laura from the amazing webshop ‘Take it Slow’, we created a video series about fair & vegan fashion. This time: the most incredible winter sweaters - not made from wool but from organic cotton! Both literally and figuratively: nothing that makes your skin crawl :)
Are you looking for a cosy warm vegan sweater for this winter? No need for wool, we can still keep you fashionably warm. Wool has an undoubtedly negative impact on the planet and is often incredibly cruel to the animals involved. And if you've always found these materials super itchy in the past - don’t worry, we found the most comfortable vegan alternatives for you.
If you not only care about the animals but also want to do your best to minimize your impact on the planet, you should always opt for recycled rather than brand new materials when shopping. Or at the least, for organic cotton.
Have you recently heard some bad things about cotton? That's pretty likely. In order to produce 1 kg of conventional cotton, around 1 litre of pesticides is needed. That’s not just bad for the environment but also for the farmers who come into contact with it. And did you know that to produce 1 cotton t-shirt, around 2700 litres of water is used? And that a pair of jeans uses a shocking amount of 7000 litres? That’s what the average human drinks in around 3,5 years and 9,5 years, respectively!
Certified organic cotton (easily recognized by the GOTS label: The Global Organic Textile Standard) not only means that no pesticides are used during its cultivation but also that its production uses far less water and energy. There are also much fairer and safer working conditions in the organic cotton field.
Well, organic cotton is far from being the perfect material (half of a huge amount of water usage is still a lot of water) but it is far more human- and animal-friendly than conventional cotton. It remains a very complex situation, but fortunately, progress is being made and plenty of environmentally-friendly fabrics and production processes are emerging!
The impact that the production of conventional or organic cotton has on the environment largely depends on where the cotton was grown. In that regard, the region where the cotton was grown is also a factor (next to whether it was grown organically or not). However, you as a consumer do not always know where the cotton was grown and therefore, it’s difficult to take that into consideration.
As previously mentioned, no pesticides or fertilizers are used in organic cultivation and water waste is as low as possible. The yield per hectare is also much lower in organic cultivation. This means that more land is needed for its growth compared to conventional cotton cultivation. But the land used for organic cultivation remains in a better shape because of this.
It’s often extremely difficult to see the bigger picture. Just remember: buy with compassion, always vegan, as fair and sustainable as possible - but also as little as you can.
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This video was made by Fotograaf Cindy