The cotton industry is strangely the globe’s second largest user of agricultural pesticides; numerous fabrics posses chemicals that are classified as carcinogenic and cause illness and death to thousands of agricultural employees every year whilst poisoning rivers and polluting ground waters. It can take as much as 3kg of chemicals to produce just 1 kg of cotton.





The harvesting process is just as harmful with chemicals, desiccants and active ingredients such as thidiazuron, pyraflufen ethyl, carfentrazon, dimethipin, paraquat, glyphosate and ethephon used to defoliate and accelerate maturity of the cotton plants. It should be noted that the majority of these chemicals are removed at the washing and manufacturing process but only to be replaced with dyes and other toxic additions.





Potentially harmful chemicals are even used on the finished product. That sweet smell we associate with your latest fabulous clothing purchase is usually the smell of formaldehyde a chemical that has been bonded to the fabric to give a wrinkle free finish. This chemical irritant is not only bad for the environment but it has also been tied with certain diseases, health problems and rising cases of chemical sensitivities in both adults and children. This is something to keep in mind especially when buying clothes for young children and babies. Formaldehyde not only irritates in the forms of all the above, this chemical was used by artist, Damien Hurst to preserve his dead cows and shark.