How ethical are t-shirts?
Probably you or someone you’re with is wearing a t-shirt right now. Without looking at the label, can you guess what material it’s made of? Or what country it was made in?
Now take a look at the label and see if you got it right. Did the answer surprise you?
Dodgy materials in t-shirts
Some materials are more harmful to the environment than others.
Most t-shirts are made of either cotton or polyester.
Cotton is often grown in India and it can take thousands of litres of water to produce just one kilogram of cotton. Cotton also uses almost 5% of the world's pesticides and 10% of insecticides, which can harm local wildlife and the environment. Sounds bad right?
Polyester isn’t any better: it’s made of plastic. It will never break down, and contributes to climate change when it’s extracted from the ground. Bad news.
More ethical t-shirt materials
What’s the solution then?
One company for example grows its cotton in a monsoon area, which means that there’s plenty of water to go around and using it for t-shirt production doesn’t mean local people have to fight the cotton companies to get their fair share of water.
Organic cotton is a great choice, because it doesn’t use pesticides or herbicides. Some brands use recycled cotton. Some companies also use more sustainable materials like hemp.
If you want to read up on different materials, take a look at our article on which clothing fabrics are the most sustainable.
The best solution is to buy secondhand or not buy at all. After all, how many t-shirts do we possibly need?
Dodgy working conditions for people who make our clothes
T-shirts are most often sewn in countries that have lots of workers who work for low wages, such as China, Bangladesh or Cambodia. The reason is simple: labour is cheap there.
Next time you are in a shop or search the internet for a t-shirt, and you find one that costs less than £10, stop and have a think. How can it be so cheap? Probably it contains unsustainable materials and isn’t paying its workers fairly. That isn’t right.
Clothing brands that respect workers
What’s the solution here? You can get an idea about whether a company supports workers’ rights by searching through its website.
Some companies still manufacture in China or India, but make sure they pay fair wages. They probably make it really obvious on their website that all workers get a wage that’s good enough to live off (a ‘living wage’), and share loads more information about their suppliers.
Some companies choose to make their clothes in Europe, where workers rights are (usually) more protected.
As always, buying secondhand or not buying at all is the best option.
