Thirsty Textiles

An insight into how much water our clothes drink up.

Let’s do a quick math problem. You have to calculate how much water I have stored in my wardrobe. I own 3 pairs of jeans & 10 cotton t-shirts. Now before I confuse you, hear me out. Making an average pair of jeans requires ~8000 litres, and a cotton t-shirt needs ~3000 litres. That’s 54,000 litres of water in my wardrobe. To put this into perspective, an average person drinks about 1000 litres of water per year. The answer to our little math problem is, I have 54 years' worth of water that I could drink, stored in my wardrobe. 

The Textile & Fashion industry uses around 93 billion cubic metres of water per year which is enough water to meet the needs of 5 million people. The fashion industry is the second-biggest consumer of water. And the industry’s water footprint is expected to double by 2030.

The fashion industry is the second-biggest consumer of water

Image: Fabric of the World

You see, the high consumption of water doesn’t stop at the farm, during production, or during dyeing. Textiles use water during their entire lifespan. Water is used from the farm level to grow cotton and other natural fibres, all the way along the supply chain (e.g., to process fibres, dye and finish products) right to the end when customers use water to wash finished items. Cotton is a particularly thirsty crop, using thousands of litres per garment throughout the lifecycle. 

Is the alarming water consumption the only water issue? Nope.

The industry is also a major polluter of water at all stages of the value chain, from the agricultural runoff from cotton fields causing algal blooms that choke rivers to the dying process that releases toxic chemicals and the washing of clothes that produces micro-plastics.

Image: Fashion Fidelity

Water Stress caused by Cotton Production

Well, you’d assume that Cotton is probably produced by countries with an abundance of fresh water right? Here’s the catch though - a bunch of ‘water-stressed’ countries are among the biggest manufacturers of cotton. China, the U.S., India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and West African countries produce just over 80% of the cotton. A large portion of our global economy thrives off of the production of cotton. Many of the most significant apparel-sourcing regions are subject to significant water risks.

Image: Enterprise Press

In Central Asia, the Aral sea faced a crisis that depleted its surface water resources to almost 10% of its original volume. This happened primarily due to cotton farmers diverting the seawater for irrigation. Cotton’s water thirst also affected the Indus River, with about 97% of its waste irrigating cotton fields.

Many of the most significant apparel-sourcing regions are subject to significant water risks.

Image: Aral Sea in 1960 vs 2000 

To sum up the numbers:

~ 3250 litres – How much water it takes to produce the cotton needed for one t-shirt – that is almost three years’ worth of drinking water.

~ 8183 litres – The gallons of water to grow enough cotton to produce just one pair of jeans. 

~ 5.9 trillion litres – The amount of water used each year for fabric dyeing alone.

~ 26 million tons - The amount of cotton currently produced annually from 90 countries. 

~ 93 billion cubic metres - Water used by the Textile Industry (the equivalent of 37 million Olympic swimming pools)

I’ll give you a minute here to finish off the math from these statistics. 

Now that you’re significantly alarmed about your outfits, let me also help you with a few solutions.

How can You be a part of the Solution?

As Brands & Companies

1. Alternative Materials: Several natural materials can be used to make cloth other than cotton and polyester, for example, algae and fruit fibres like orange peel and pineapple leaves. 

2. Understand your Environmental Impact: Understanding how your business both depends on and affects biodiversity is the first step to developing strategies for sustainable operation.

3. Sourcing: Sustainably produced and organic cotton via international standards and farming programmes.

4. Suppliers: Working with production sites that recycle or reuse water from different stages of processing. Engage responsible suppliers with established and verified sustainability standards. 

5. Educate Customers: Create information campaigns and incentivize consumers to make sustainable choices. Brands can also teach customers how to care for their clothing to make it last longer.

As Consumers

1. Buy Better and Buy Less: purchase limited and long-lasting garments and invest in low-water

2. Be an Investigative Shopper: Find out about how clothing companies source and process raw materials. Ask brands to disclose what steps they are taking to address their impacts on biodiversity, and their water footprint and support those that have strong policies and practices in place. 

3. Shop Second-hand or Thrift: Clothing would end up in landfills once disposed of but you can prolong its life by purchasing pre-loved pieces. 

4. Mindful Laundry: Use cold water and water-efficient settings.

5. Don’t Dispose: Consider altering, donating, or gifting garments before disposing of them. 

How Businesses are Reducing the Water Footprint of Textiles:

Ananas Anam

This British brand turns pineapple leaves into a leather textile called Piñatex. Fibres are extracted from pineapple leaves and after processing, emerge as a non-woven mesh forming the base of the textile. These leaves are considered a waste product of the existing pineapple harvest and unlike cotton, do not require as much water in production, as well processing. 

Algaeing

This Israeli start-up uses Algae to produce a biodegradable, non-toxic, and low-energy textile. The algae are grown in seawater in indoor "vertical farms" that run on solar energy. This means that, unlike cotton, it doesn't take up agricultural land, and it doesn't have the carbon emissions associated with using fertilizer.

DyeCoo

DyeCoo is a material processing fashion startup based in the Netherlands that uses patented technology based on reclaimed CO₂, instead of water as the dyeing medium. When pressurized, CO₂ becomes supercritical (SC-CO₂). In this state CO₂ has a very high solvent power, allowing the dye to dissolve easily. No process chemicals, no water, no waste water and therefore no wastewater treatment is necessary nor is there water wastage.  

Good Fashion Fund

The Good Fashion Fund (GFF) is an investment fund focused solely on driving the implementation of innovative solutions in the fashion industry. The Good Fashion Fund invests in the adoption of disruptive technologies and circular innovations in the textile & apparel production industry in Asia (India, Bangladesh, Vietnam).

Joining the battle: CTRL + Z specializes in water recovery from textile dyeing wastewater. The same water can be reused in multiple cycles, thereby reducing the water footprint of your tees and jeans.

With the awareness and availability of alternative fabrics, low-water materials and organic cotton, responsible fashion is simply a choice to make. 

A question worth riddling yourself with is, ‘if instead of the price in money, we saw the price of a garment in terms of water, would we still find it a reasonable purchase?’ 

Our textiles are thirsty, but so is our planet.