Why Organic?
So why bother with using organic cotton? Does it really make any real difference?
While turning off the tap when you brush your teeth and recycling your newspapers may only make a small (but still valid) difference to your impact on the planet, buying organic cotton can really change peoples lives. Cotton crops account for twenty-five percent of the world's use of pesticides. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 20,000 people die each year due to accidental pesticide poisoning and up to one million are suffering from acute long term poisoning. Conventional cotton farming also causes long term contamination of rivers, lakes and waterways.
What about where it comes from does that matter?
Buying organic cotton helps to open up the market to developing nations as a 20% premium can be charged for certified organic cottons. Four hundred million cotton farmers in the developing world are living in conditions of abject poverty due to the collapse of world cotton prices caused by large cotton subsidies to cotton growers in the US, EU and China. American corporate cotton barons can get rich because they are also receiving generous payments directly from the U.S. Government which paid U.S. cotton farmers $2.06 billion in 2001, which is almost twice as much as the U.S.'s foreign aid to Sub-Saharan Africa! So just because a t-shirt says 'sweatshop free made in America' doesn't mean nobody got shat on making it.
And if you don't give a shit buy them because the designs are dope!