Organic Cotton: An Environmentally Sound Choice for Many Reasons

Organic cotton products are becoming increasingly popular among environmentally conscious consumers. Goods ranging from clothing to bed linens to backpacks, totes, and other accessories are popping up in greater frequency as people become more aware of their existence.

Even Wal-Mart has gotten into the business, announcing that its retail stores will begin carrying a line of organic cotton clothing soon. While some environmentalists are doubtful that the company, plagued by bad publicity because of its employee and procurement policies, is making a serious commitment to environmentalism, other green activists are hoping that this move signals both a positive trend in Wal-Mart's corporate philosophy and the opportunity to lower the cost of often pricey organic goods.

The toxic load resulting from conventional cotton farming is especially extreme; According to Will Allen, the founder and director of California's Sustainable Cotton Project, 17.5 million pounds of pesticides "were applied to 1 million acres of cotton in 1995" (sustainablecotton.org). This toxic load has a high cost in terms of the environment, including the deaths of millions of birds and impact on the water supply used by both wildlife and humans.

Farmers of organic cotton use many techniques to lessen or eliminate chemical fertilizers and highly toxic pesticides. Substituting mulch and manure for the chemical fertilizers, instituting crop rotation-alternating between grains, beans, and cotton-and adding beneficial insects to combat the destructive ones allow for sustainable cotton farming while eliminating toxins that leech out of the soil into streams, rivers and lakes.

Cotton farmers worldwide are switching to organic practices; as more and more farmers come on board, and as large retailers like Wal-Mart increase their interest in selling organic goods, their availability will increase and the prices decrease - a good deal for the environment and the consumer.