Consider the classic white t-shirt. Annually, we sell and buy 2 billion t-shirts globally, making it one of the most common garments in the world. But how and where is the average t-shirt made, and what’s its environmental impact? Angel Chang traces the life cycle of a t-shirt.
Lesson by Angel Chang, directed by TED-Ed.
Lesson by Angel Chang, directed by TED-Ed.
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LearningTranscript
00:00Consider the classic white t-shirt.
00:10Annually, we sell and buy 2 billion t-shirts globally,
00:14making it one of the most common garments in the world.
00:17But how and where is the average t-shirt made?
00:21And what's its environmental impact?
00:24Clothing items can vary a lot,
00:26but a typical t-shirt begins its life on a farm in America, China, or India,
00:31where cotton seeds are sown, irrigated, and grown for the fluffy bowls they produce.
00:38Self-driving machines carefully harvest these puffs,
00:42an industrial cotton gin mechanically separates the fluffy bowls from the seeds,
00:47and the cotton lint is pressed into 225-kilogram bales.
00:51The cotton plants require a huge quantity of water and pesticides,
00:552,700 liters of water are needed to produce the average t-shirt,
01:01enough to fill more than 30 bathtubs.
01:04Meanwhile, cotton uses more insecticides and pesticides than any other crop in the world.
01:10These pollutants can be carcinogenic, harm the health of field workers,
01:15and damage surrounding ecosystems.
01:18Some t-shirts are made of organic cotton, grown without pesticides and insecticides,
01:24but organic cotton makes up less than 1% of the 22.7 million metric tons of cotton produced worldwide.
01:33Once the cotton bales leave the farm, textile mills ship them to a spinning facility,
01:39usually in China or India,
01:41where high-tech machines blend,
01:45card, comb,
01:47pull,
01:48stretch,
01:49and finally,
01:50twist the cotton into snowy ropes of yarn called slivers.
01:55Then, yarns are sent to the mill,
01:57where huge circular knitting machines weave them into sheets of rough grayish fabric,
02:02treated with heat and chemicals until they turn soft and white.
02:07Here, the fabric is dipped into commercial bleaches and azo dyes,
02:12which make up the vivid coloring in about 70% of textiles.
02:16Unfortunately, some of these contain cancer-causing cadmium, lead, chromium, and mercury.
02:23Other harmful compounds and chemicals can cause widespread contamination
02:28when released as toxic waste water in rivers and oceans.
02:32Technologies are now so advanced in some countries
02:35that the entire process of growing and producing fabric barely touches a human hand.
02:40But only up until this point.
02:43After the finished cloth travels to factories,
02:46often in Bangladesh, China, India, or Turkey,
02:50human labor is still required to stitch them up into t-shirts.
02:54Intricate work that machines just can't do.
02:57This process has its own problems.
03:00Bangladesh, for example,
03:02which has surpassed China as the world's biggest exporter of cotton t-shirts,
03:06employs 4.5 million people in the t-shirt industry.
03:10But they typically face poor conditions and low wages.
03:14After manufacture, all those t-shirts travel by ship, train, and truck
03:20to be sold in high-income countries,
03:23a process that gives cotton an enormous carbon footprint.
03:26Some countries produce their own clothing domestically,
03:29which cuts out this polluting stage.
03:32But generally, apparel production accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions.
03:37And it's escalating.
03:39Cheaper garments, and the public's willingness to buy,
03:43boosted global production from 1994 to 2014 by 400%,
03:50to around 80 billion garments each year.
03:54Finally, in a consumer's home,
03:57the t-shirt goes through one of the most resource-intensive phases of its lifetime.
04:02In America, for instance,
04:04the average household does nearly 400 loads of laundry per year.
04:08Each using about 40 gallons of water.
04:11Washing machines and dryers both use energy,
04:14with dryers requiring five to six times more than washers.
04:19This dramatic shift in clothing consumption over the last 20 years,
04:23driven by large corporations and the trend of fast fashion,
04:27has cost the environment, the health of farmers,
04:30and driven questionable human labor practices.
04:34It's also turned fashion into the second-largest polluter in the world after oil.
04:40But there are things we can do.
04:42Consider shopping second-hand.
04:44Try to look for textiles made from recycled or organic fabrics.
04:48Wash clothes less and line dry to save resources.
04:52Instead of throwing them away at the end of their life,
04:55donate, recycle, or reuse them as cleaning rags.
04:59And finally, you might ask yourself,
05:02how many t-shirts and articles of clothing will you consume over your lifetime?
05:06And what will be their combined impact on the world?
05:10When we produce TED-Ed videos about the environment,
05:14we often think about the young people who subscribe to this channel
05:17and how unfair it is that you are inheriting environmental problems
05:21that were probably set into motion long before you were born.
05:24The good news is that we see students everywhere making moves
05:28to meet the world's biggest challenges head-on.
05:31For example, in TED-Ed's Student Voice program,
05:34sustainability has emerged as a topic of choice
05:37in thousands of presentations given by students throughout the world.
05:42You can watch their talks on the TED-Ed Club's YouTube channel.
05:46And you can learn more about the program by visiting ed.ted.com slash clubs.
05:52As always, thanks for watching.