This article is part of a series of explanations of fashion’s pressing need for more environmentally-conscious business, sourcing, and production methods. In understanding fabric, most see color, content, weave, texture, durability, warmth, etc.—not water. Behind all of these traits are numerous supply chain components that determine whether or not a fabric is “sustainable,” but this Sustainability 101 discussion is about the component of H2O, and how the textile industry is using up rather a lot of it. Annually, the production of textiles soaks up 93 billion cubic meters of water, the equivalent of 37 million Olympic swimming pools, representing 4% of global freshwater withdrawal, according to The Conscious Challenge. Two-thirds of this textile production is for clothing. This amount seems enormous, so let’s break it down—the more minuscule numbers are shocking. Read it and weep: it takes about 700 gallons of water (about 2,700 liters) to produce one cotton shirt, which is enough water for one person to drink at least eight cups per day for two to three years. Meanwhile, it takes about 2,000 gallons of water to produce a pair of jeans, which is more than enough for one person to drink eight cups per day for 10 years. (Note: this number includes water used to grow cotton crops.) The numeric reporting is admittedly spotty. WWF reports that it takes about 20,000 liters (5,283 gallons) of water to produce just one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cotton, amounting to one T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Nonetheless, it’s a lot of gallons, if we consider that each year, over two billion t-shirts are sold worldwide—which means 700 gallons per cotton t-shirt x 1.2 billion cotton t-shirts (60% of t-shirts are made of synthetic fibers) annually we COULD, by the published numbers, IF true, be talking about 840,000,000,000 gallons of water for t-shirts alone. Point is, by any standard, fashion has a water drinking problem, and one that seems hard to justify when water is such a precious and depleting, resource. In China, for example, 80-90% of the fabric, yarn, and plastic-based fibers are made in already water-scarce or water-stressed regions. In Uzbekistan, cotton farming used up so much water from the Aral Sea that it dried up after about 50 years.
Image credit: World Economic Forum Why so much water?
Growing and irrigating the crops of plant-based fibers like cotton (most popular), linen and hemp, requires huge amounts of water. The process also pollutes water, when crop pesticides drain into rivers and then into oceans. Water consumption and water pollution via the production of oil-based synthetic fibers like polyester is harder to track, but nonetheless contributing culprit in the problem of water overuse. The production of synthetic fibers and fabrics is a highly chemically-reliant process that results in a significant amount of waste byproduct that also, ultimately, ends up polluting water.
Post-harvest, water is then needed to wash fibers and fabrics. Cotton does not come immediately clean or freshly white; it requires bleaching and rinsing. Wool, cashmere, angora, alpaca, etc. also need to be washed of animal bacteria, dyed and rinsed. (We should also mention water consumed by animals raised for their fleece.) Washing helps soften fabrics, especially stiffer fabrics like linen and hemp. And synthetics need to be washed of their excess chemicals. (We have not mentioned leather production in this article, but washing and tanning leather requires huge amounts of water as well.)
Lastly, there’s the textile dyeing—dye itself usually requiring water—and rinsing. Textile dyeing is the world’s second-largest polluter of water since the water leftover from the dyeing process is often dumped into ditches, streams, or rivers. The dyeing process uses enough water to fill 2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools each year. Films like River Blue trace how denim textile mills and factories in China and across the world are dyeing and contaminating waterways.
Actually, textiles’ water use continues even after the production stage. Last, but not least, let’s not forget the water that we use to wash our clothes. Washing clothing with washing machines is estimated to require an additional 20 billion cubic meters of water per year globally. (For which reason, certain sustainability-minded fashion brands like Reformation advocate washing clothes less to as to use less water. Turns out, being a little dirty is a clean and green thing to do.) Another problem with post-production/consumption washing is the fact that in addition to soaps and chemicals, washing synthetic fabrics also emits microplastics into our water supplies. Microplastics, or microfibers, are very small pieces of plastic that never biodegrade, and with 60% of contemporary garments made of polyester, 500,000 tons of these make it into the ocean each year — the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles. About 35% of all microplastics in waterways come from the laundering of synthetic textiles like polyester. In total, the fashion industry is responsible for about one-fifth of all industrial water pollution worldwide. So what are our options? We can embrace less resource-demanding textiles. There are some fabrics that require less water to grow their initial crops, such as bast fabrics linen and hemp. According to the European Confederation of Linen and Hemp, a linen shirt uses 6.4 liters of water compared to a cotton shirt’s purported 2,700 liters/700 gallons. And hemp requires 50% less water per season than cotton. On the note of fiber origins, prioritizing organic is another good direction to pursue. We need to seek more proper ways of disposing of bleach and dye vats and avoid dumping toxic dyes into large waterways. (And that doesn’t mean just dumping them into the land, because eventually, this dye will drain its way into the water.) On that note, we need to prioritize the implementation of nontoxic dyes—because we’re not advocating a colorless world, yet. Though some conscious brands are opting not to bleach their whites, which eliminates an entire chemical and washing stage. Additionally, we can continue to try and prioritize the development of recycled fabrics, which instead of requiring massive use of water via the growing of new natural fibers (or production of polyesters) uses up preexisting fabrics. But even these can require washing and dyeing. Moreover, lessening any industry is tricky, as cotton farmers depend on large sales of cotton for their wellbeing. All efforts at conservation, even small, are invaluable—and urgently needed.