Nurdles. Great word; sad story.

Nurdles are tiny bits of plastic that contaminate our oceans. They are made of HDPE, high-density polyethylene, the stuff we use for plastic bags, laundry bottles, milk containers…the list goes on and on.

What is so terrible about nurdles is that they are collecting in a giant garbage pile in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an area thousands of kilometers wide where currents meet and our tons and tons of plastic waste resides.

So, that’s where those plastic bags end up.

What is so devastating about nurdles is how they affect marine life.

Many marine birds feed on small organisms that look just like nurdles. Instead of ingesting the small crustaceans that are necessary for their survival, birds are ingesting our plastic garbage.

If the birds aren’t choked to death by eating the nurdles, they are damaged by the plastic chemicals leaching into their bodies.

Our obsession with plastic is wreaking havoc on our oceans and killing marine life.

Put down the water bottle, put down the plastic bag; our oceans deserve better.

The answer, unfortunately, is no.

Organic cotton producers would like consumers to believe that organic cotton is pesticide free, but the hardiness of cotton pests makes this an impossibility.

There are many pseudonyms for the pesticides permitted for use on organics to make them sound healthier. They have been called “botanicals”, “natural remedies” or “organic pesticides”. But in actuality, organic pesticides are just as deadly as their synthetic counterparts.

Dr. Louis Hom, who specializes in Molecular & Cell Biology, states on his website,:

Until recently, nobody bothered to look at natural chemicals (such as organic pesticides), because it was assumed that they posed little risk. But when the studies were done, the results were somewhat shocking: you find that about half of the natural chemicals studied are carcinogenic as well.

What is alarming about this fact is how few organic pesticides are permitted for use on the organic cotton crop. This means that the chemicals that are allowed in organic farming may actually accumulate faster than if varying types were permitted.

One of the chemicals that organic farmers must resort to in order to deal with the troublesome cotton boll weevil is pyrethrin. Pyrethrin comes from the Chrysanthemum plant, but its natural origins belie its danger.

Pyrethrin is just as toxic as its synthetic counterpart, pyrethroid. It is extremly harmful to honeybees and fish, and can also harm the nervous system of humans, just as it does insects.

Wholly replacing conventional cotton farming with organic farming would significantly reduce pesticide use but may in fact damage the environment by concentrating the pesticide pollution to just a few chemicals.

Both conventional cotton and organic cotton pose risks, so, what is the right choice for the ethical shopper?

As with many things in life, the answer to stability is diversity.

It is dangerous to put such a heavy importance on cotton fiber. Making sixty percent of clothes from a crop so attractive to pests invites environmental devastation.

In order to be environmentally sound, consumers need to come up with new ideas of fashion based on multiple fiber sources. When we vary our fiber choices we minimize the overall impact of any one choice.

So, next time you’re shopping, instead of more cotton jeans and t-shirts, try picking up a silk blouse, hemp skirt, linen jacket or bamboo socks!

While the pesticides produced today are made to be broken down quickly in air, soil or water, scientists are finding “pesticides are far more persistent in groundwater than they are in soil”. This is an alarming fact considering fifty one percent of the United States drinking water supply comes from groundwater (Deep Trouble).

Groundwater in seven states tested positive for Aldicarb, the toxic nerve poison used on cotton fields (State of the World 2004 ). Alarmingly, the Environmental Protection Agency is only regulating America’s water supply for a small number of these chemicals.

The situation in other cotton producing countries is even worse.

In India, where arsenic containing pesticides have been used on cotton, groundwater can contain as much 50 times the amount the World Health Organization considers acceptable (India Today).

All this for a new pair of jeans?

Although pesticides are currently manufactured to break down quickly into its harmless constituents, small levels of pesticides have been found in rivers and streams near cotton farms.

Many pesticides are highly toxic to aquatic life. Water temperature increases the toxicity of pesticides and water temperatures are on the rise due to global warming.

Even if fish are not killed by the pesticides leaked into the water they can exhibit an array of other problems when exposed to small amounts, ranging from “abnormal behavioral and pathological conditions [to] failures in reproduction” (Use and Significance of Pesticides).

Paraquat is used worldwide and causes “pain, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, nosebleeds, loss of appetite, and death” (Fatal Harvest).

The effect of long term exposure to small amounts of pesticides on aquatic life has not been determined yet we still allow these chemicals to flow into our waterways.

Scientists are starting to suspect that when pesticides get into the air, an “inevitable part of aerial application” (Fatal Harvest), they are adversely affecting honeybees.

Honeybees are responsible for pollinating $15 billion worth of American crops, including apples, almonds and blueberries.

Honeybees are extremely sensitive to pesticides.

A study published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry showed that minute doses of pesticides affect the ability of honeybees to smell flowers. Chronic exposure to pesticides resulted in honeybee death. Honeybee death could have serious consequences for the United States food supply.

It is not just bees and fish that are exposed to the chemicals used on cotton, frighteningly; pesticides find their way into the worldwide water supply and expose humans as well.

India and China, the top leaders in cotton production have even lower standards of pesticide control and allow more toxins to flow into their environments.

Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), while now banned in India, is still widely used there and is infamous as one of the most dangerous and persistent pesticides.

In developing nations, lack of education related to the hazards of pesticides poses serious risks.

In Africa, “45 percent of cotton farmers said they used pesticide containers to carry water, while 20-35 percent used them to hold milk or soup” (State of the World 2004).

A report on agricultural workers in India indicated “500 cotton farmers […] are believed to have died in 2001 as a result of pesticide exposure” (State 2004).

In 1990, the World Health Organization estimated that “3 million severe acute pesticide poisonings occur in developing countries each year, including some 220,000 fatalities” (Fatal Harvest).

Aldicarb, paraquat and chlorpyrifos are among those used on the cotton crop (Fatal Harvest).

Aldicarb is the most toxic in its class of insecticides, the carbamates. Aldicarb is a nerve poison that is toxic to insects but is also highly toxic to a wide range of organisms including birds, fish and humans. Carbamates are so toxic that they “are responsible for the most acute pesticide poisonings and deaths in the United States and worldwide” (Fatal Harvest).

Paraquat is a similarly dangerous chemical which attacks the lungs of mammals and has resulted in “many human fatalities” (Use and Significance of Pesticides in the Environment).

Paraquat is used worldwide and causes “pain, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, nosebleeds, loss of appetite, and death” (Fatal Harvest) and chlorpyrifos is no picnic either.

While not as toxic as the others, chlorpyrifos is persistent in soil and has the ability to evaporate into the air. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, states on their website that chlorpyrifos causes a “variety of nervous system effects, ranging from headaches, blurred vision, and salivation to seizures, coma, and death, depending on the amount and length of exposure.”

These are the kinds of chemicals that are being used to provide the masses with their latest pair of jeans!!

Merril, Macormac and Mauersberger state in the American Cotton Handbook: A Practical Reference Book for the Entire Cotton Industry, “[t]he growing of cotton is one of the world’s great agricultural problems”.

As explained by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) , the reason growing cotton is such a problem is “the cotton plant is unusually attractive to insects and probably no other cultivated crop has as large a list of insect enemies.

Among these are some of the most destructive pests in the history of agriculture”. Cotton is attacked by aphids, bollworms, lygus bugs, whiteflies, boll weevils and many more damaging pests. To deal with these pests, a host of environmentally harmful pesticides is used on the cotton crop.

Eighty million pounds of pesticides were applied to American cotton fields in 1995 according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service. This puts cotton second only to corn as the highest pesticide using crop in the United States.

The problem is not just exclusive to America – “$2.6 billion worth of pesticides [are] applied to cotton worldwide each year” (The Fatal Harvest Reader
).

What is even more frightening, however, is, last year the USDA stopped tracking and reporting the pesticides which are used on American farms each year citing budget constraints (Chicago Tribune).

With over sixty percent of clothing being made from cotton and consumers buying new clothes with every new season and every latest style, it is an issue that must be considered to minimize the overall ecological impact of the fashion industry. The issue of cotton is especially relevant to the western world as United States and European Union populations “consume 45 per cent of the world’s cotton product, despite being only 13 per cent of world population” (Eco-chic: The Fashion Paradox).

The ubiquity of ‘jeans and a t-shirt’ in western culture contributes to the “high cotton use” (Eco-chic) with no end in sight.

Conventionally grown cotton comes with a host of problems which affect air, ground and water systems but organically grown cotton is not a perfect solution either.

While organic cotton has made definite improvements to minimize the impact of cotton production, cotton, organic or not, is not the most environmentally sound choice for over sixty percent of our clothing.

The biotechnology company, Monsanto, came out with an artificial growth hormone, Posilac (referred to as rBST or rBGH), that could be injected into cows to increase their milk production. In the past few years, consumers have become afraid of milk treated with these hormones.

In researching milk and growth hormones, I expected to find study after study pointing to cancers, reduced fertility and other frightening problems associated with drinking milk from cows treated with rBGH. But I didn’t.

There was one study done in 1999, widely quoted by organic milk advocates, which showed growth hormones lead to increased insulin growth hormones, which do cause a problem in human cells.

But a study done by the American Dietetic Association showed compositionally, there is not that much different between conventional milk, organic milk and milk not treated with growth hormones. The study tested milk from all over the U.S. and found that there were more of the hormones progesterone and estradiol and more bacteria in the organic milk! Insulin-like growth hormone 1 was also tested for and it was found that the levels in conventional milk were the same as those found in the rBGH-free milk.

Even the American Cancer Society does not have a stance on rBGH milk, stating they have “no formal position” on growth hormones in milk. The American Cancer Society website goes into more detail on the matter, stating that while insulin-like growth hormone poses a cancer risk, “there is no evidence that drinking milk, produced with or without rBGH treatment, increases circulating IGF[insulin-like growth factor] levels into the range of concern.”

If there is no difference in the milk itself, what else should you think about when deciding between the various brands of milk? Animal welfare and environmental impact are two considerations.

Cows treated with growth hormones are actually better for the environment. If the same amount of milk can be gained from fewer cows, there is a reduced need for housing, feeding and watering the animals which all take their toll on the environment.

However, getting more milk from fewer cows is stressful for the animals. Ethically, milk from cows treated with rBGH is not the best choice. The increased milk production can lead to shorter lives for the cows and a lower quality of life because of health problems associated with the extra milk production.

In the end, you don’t really need to stress too much about the choice between non-rBGH milk and regular milk. The panic circulating around the rBGH buzzword was enough to effectively kill the bovine growth hormone industry.

Monsanto sold the rights to Posilac and more and more major companies like Walmart and Starbucks are pledging to sell milk from cows not treated with growth hormones.

The decline in rBGH use is not as good for the environment but it’s good for the cows, and really, of not much concern to the average milk drinker.

I was in need of some dance costumes today and instead of ordering them from a major supplier I thought I’d be eco-friendly and see what was available at the local Goodwill.

What I found was a treasure trove of new ideas and possibilities! Going through the aisles I found more than enough suitable outfits that with a few tweaks will come out to be sparkly dance costumes.

Instead of the standard men’s dance shirt from a catalogue, costing almost $50(!), I found a gorgeous silk shirt for $4 that I can save from the landfill and will float beautifully around the stage.

The shirt has a small stain, sure, but that just means I will spend a fun afternoon dying it new colors!

Dying silk isn’t the most environmentally friendly thing I could be doing, but I’m still saving the production and shipping footprint of a brand new shirt, not to mention the money I’m saving as well!

I found a satin top for another dancer, that with the addition of a few sequins (another fun afternoon project) will sparkle just as well as a brand new costume.

An old sparkly prom dress, with a slight alteration, will make another fine dance costume and save the world a bit of pollution.

I had a lot of fun today looking at all the clothes at the Goodwill, thinking of ways I could alter and make them look special for the stage. It felt good too, because not ony was I having fun and saving money, I was also doing my part to reduce, reuse and recycle!