When looking for ways to address this crisis, we don't have to look far. A small change in how we think about garment care can make a real difference.
It takes over 3,600 gallons of water to produce a single cotton t-shirt and pair of jeans! It also requires two pounds of pesticide, which can end up back in our water supply.
To manufacture the 450 million jeans sold in America each year, it takes more water than flows over Niagara Falls in a decade!
Globally, cotton production leads to nearly 210 billion cubic meters of water evaporation,* more than the entire volume of water in Lake Tahoe!
Cotton is planted on 2.4 percent of the planet's arable land, but accounts for 24 percent of all insecticide use.
Traditional clothes dyeing takes 7 to 75 gallons of water per pound of fabric. Each year synthetic textile dyeing consumes 2.4 trillion gallons of water. That's 3,700,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
