Two of the SDGs focus specifically on water: SDG 6 aims to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” and SDG 14 aims to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
In 2015 29% of the global population lacked safe drinking water and 61% were without toilets and other sanitation facilities. In 22 countries, mostly in the Northern Africa, Western Asia, Central Asia and Southern Asia regions, the water stress level is above 70%, meaning dwindling sources of freshwater could lead to water shortages in the near future.
How is water relevant in the fashion industry?
Cotton is one of the worst offenders when it comes to water consumption on an industrial scale. Cotton makes up approximately 30-40% of the clothing we wear and it can take 10,000 litres of water to produce just 1kg of cotton, equivalent to six typical t-shirts.
Many of the countries in the world where cotton is grown are the places most at risk of the effects of climate change. India and Pakistan are expected to see more occurrences of flooding, whilst China is facing an increasing risk of water scarcity. A 2018 BBC television documentary called “Fashion’s Dirty Secrets” demonstrated powerfully the effects of the fashion industry on water supplies. Stacey Dooley, the programme’s host, drove miles across the Aral Sea to show the desertification of what was once one of the largest inland seas. In just 50 years, the Aral Sea has been reduced to a toxic dustbowl by the cotton industry, impoverishing communities that have relied on the Aral Sea for their livelihoods over many generations.
What’s being done to reduce cotton’s water use?
Some organisations are trying to reduce the scale of cotton’s water consumption. For example, the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) is working with the Alliance for Water Stewardship to help educate cotton farmers to use water more efficiently by retaining irrigation water and preventing water waste. Dozens of multinational fashion brands are working with BCI to source more sustainable forms of cotton.
Meanwhile, in organic certification systems, cotton’s water requirements can be met by a combination of precipitation, irrigation, and/or soil moisture. In fact, about 75-80% of organic-certified cotton is rain-fed. Organic-certified cotton has the added benefit that it prohibits the use of pesticides and insecticides, meaning no risk of toxic chemicals running off into our water supplies.
Ultimately though, cotton production cannot be sustained at the current rates and we need to look at other more sustainable fibres like hemp and linen to add to the materials in our wardrobes. For example, Levi Strauss launched its “Wellthread” collection which uses ‘cottonised’ hemp and cotton mix making the fibre feel as soft and supple as cotton.
Fashion’s water pollution problem
Another major issue is pollution from the wet processing of the textile industry. Wet processing is the scouring, bleaching, dyeing, printing and finishing of raw textiles. While many companies are cleaning up their acts and investing in cleaner dyeing innovations which use little or no water, many of the world’s waterways are still being polluted, described in the film River Blue as “hydrocide – deliberately murdering our rivers.”
The Citarum River in Indonesia is home to around 2,000 textile factories where the effluent used for dyeing and processing fabric is dumped, with little or no regulation. Attempts to clean up the world’s most polluted river have been pointless as the authorities turn a blind eye to rogue factories. Pollution on this scale is a gross infringement of people’s human rights.
Indonesia’s Citarum: The World’s Most Polluted River/: https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/indonesias-citarum-the-worlds-most-polluted-river/
Our clothes contribute to plastic pollution too
As well as water conservation and freshwater stewardship, the fashion industry must take responsibility for its impact on the amount of plastic in our oceans. A truck load of plastic is thrown into the oceans every minute adding to the 12.7 million tonnes of plastic already polluting and suffocating marine life from the Arctic to the remotest uninhabited Pacific islands.
Research has shown that every time we wash our synthetic clothing, tiny particles of plastic called microfibres – too small to be caught by conventional water treatment – are being washed into our water systems, ending up in rivers, lakes and oceans . Microfibre pollution is completely at odds with SDG 14 which sets out to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”.
No amount of Guppy bags (designed to capture microfibres in our washing machines), no individual brand or single company can fix the issue of microfibre pollution on its own. Governments need to regulate – and police – the industry’s use and abuse of water.
Microfibre pollution was discussed in 2018 by the Environmental Audit Committee in the UK House of Parliament – the same committee that managed to ban microbeads in cosmetics throughout the UK. “The Government should facilitate collaboration between fashion retailers, water companies and washing machine manufacturers and take a lead on solving the problem of microfibre pollution,” read the report. “Ultimate responsibility for stopping this pollution, however, must lie with the companies making the products that are shedding the fibres.”
Effects of fabric type and washing conditions: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27686821/
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