Cotton Not So Good For The Environment

PatchWorkKid, if you can't afford hemp or organic cotton switch to second-hand clothing. I said this before and I'll say it again: second time around clothing, be it cotton, synthetic or fur is a better environmental choice than buying brand new organic hemp clothing. The best environmental choice is REDUCE by doing without when you can, it also leaves less clutter .

Throw a clothing trading party with a bunch of friends who are the same size as you, browse http://www.freecycle.org/ for clothing. I have not shopped for new clothes in years. And remember, ask and you may receive.

 

Thanks for the "freecycle" link!
And WHOA to the news about how cotton is cultivated..I had no idea. Is that why new clothes smell the way they do?

It seems suprising that they feel the need for defoliating agents. cotton balls are very high in nitrogen and it seems that if they were to let the plant go unfertilized <<letting the plant suck the N from the leaves<<then the plant would defoliate it's self. Then fertilizing could be resumed. I guess the slow down while the ferts were being withheld may not seem commercially feasible.

so, if they continue present practices, I wonder how we could keep chems from hitting our free flowing water supplies.

Perhaps having the plants covered from the rain <<<then the chem would not be washed off into the groundwater or streams. Hmmm, good start. i'm rather betting that there is no rain at that time in the season; rain may ruin cotton balls..

Ok, lets try again. how about if the application of the chem was regulated so that it was sprayed on the leaves only and not on the ground (perhaps ground covers may be needed). ok, then once the leaves died they could be gathered up and disposed of properly; perhaps we would gather the leaves at the same time that we gathered up the ground covers <<perhaps the leaves would be falling onto the ground covers? Then gathering the leaves would be relatively easy.

sounds good to me.

and about the dirty lettuce and such. We could benefit from more hydroponic settings where the fertilizers were recycled. I saw one on PBS last night that did so. great stuff but a ha ha too because they called hydroponics revolutionary<<hey WE'VE been doing it for 40 years..

Wouldn't it be great to have huge charcoal filters on every stream?

oh and DuPont may suck ass, all commercial pigs do.. but it is Utah (and the Mormons) who first outlawed marihuana (i forget, it was 32' or '34). they redeemed theirselves a little bit (in my book) this year when Brigham Young University announced that they had found a cure for AIDS. It's effective against all known forms of the virus and may cure other things like herpes and the bird flu. It won't be available to the general public for 3-7 years unless the FDA fasttracks it.

my grandma grew up picking cotton on their plantation, she's 88 and never mentioned defoliation<<<i wonder if they did it back when<<i'll ask her