Conventional cotton grown in the U.S. ranks third behind corn and soybeans in total amount of pesticides sprayed.
What to do about the clothing we wear? Buy organic cotton clothing if you can afford it, or...

 

buy "recycled" clothing from thrift stores or re-sale stores. Hold off on buying clothing until you absolutely have to! I wait until my stuff is nearly in tatters before I replace it, or I've "outgrown" it (at age 51 I'm not likely to get any taller, just wider)--yeah, not exactly fashionable, but easier on the environment and on my budget!

By buying "recycled" clothing, the consumer demand for new clothing diminishes--the consumer is "buying out" of the "consumer mentality" that grips Western culture. "Recycle, reduce, reuse" applies to all aspects of consumer consumption, not just the usual paper/glass/aluminum, etc.

If we must buy new, the more of us who buy new clothing that is made from organic cotton, the higher the consumer demand, the more acreage of organic cotton is grown, the less pesticides/herbicides are used, and hopefully the cost of organic cotton clothing goes down over time as more of it is manufactured.

 

Where to Buy Organic Clothing Online:

 

I rarely buy organic cotton clothing because of the price, but just received an e-mail from Maggies Functional Organics announcing a new online "outlet" for reduced pricing that looks fairly reasonable:

http://www.maggiesorganics.com/products_item.php?cat_id=9
 

You can find some Maggies products in Whole Foods; the prices online are less as you don't have to pay the Whole Foods mark-up.  Maggies is also listed on Co-Op America's National Green Pages

For a listing of 109 other organic cotton/hemp/silk/bamboo/Fair Trade/sweatshop-free clothing, go to Co-op America's National Green Pages and put "Clothing" in the "Category" section:
http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/greenpages/

For more information read Organic Trade Association's "Cotton and the Environment":

 

http://www.ota.com/organic/environment/cotton_environment.html

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Thanks for going Green!

--Liora Leah