For many people, one of the major drawbacks to going green is the cost. Today, going green involves much more than recycling and taking shorter showers. It can involve solar panels, hybrid cars and organic cotton products, all of which add up pretty quickly.
The price of going green may be intimidating, but it does not have to be. It is true that right now, it is more expensive to go green. However, that is because the idea of going green is still generally new. It is more expensive to farm organic cotton because at this time, there is much less of it farmed than conventional cotton. The natural, earth-friendly products needed to farm organic cotton are more expensive than the pesticides and toxins used to farm its conventional counterpart. As organic cotton gains more and more popularity, there will be more money to afford the farming of organic cotton and more reason to farm more of it. As the demand increases, the cost decreases. So if everyone spends just a little bit more money on the earth-friendly products, soon, the price of organic cotton will be almost equal to that of conventional.
Some people may not realize the benefits of organic farming. To produce one regular cotton T-shirt, it takes approximately one-third of a pound of chemical pesticides. In recent years, over 84 million pounds of chemical pesticides were sprayed over cotton fields. Those chemicals do not harm just the soil and the fields that are sprayed. The chemicals from the cotton fields get into the food stream as animal feed and cottonseed oil and end up harming the soil, water, and air.
With organic farming, no pesticides, insecticides or other toxins are used in the farming process. Better agricultural methods, such as more frequent crop rotation, are used to benefit and prolong the life of the soil.
For a product to be considered organic, the standards that must be met are very high. All products labeled organic are monitored very closely through the whole farming process, from start to finish. The labor standards for organic farming are also much higher than other farming. With organizations like Fair Trade working against child labor practices and fighting for decent wages, the standards, and cost, of labor practices are higher because of their quality.
Many people may look at the cost of organic products and just see a big number, but in the grand scheme of things, a few extra dollars will go a long way. There are no statistics for the cost of health care for the farmers of conventional cotton, but those farmers have a higher rate of cancer than other farmers. A cheaper T-shirt is not worth the harm its manufacturing does to the environment and the people who suffer its lifelong consequences.
