Once and For All: Is Cotton a Sustainable Fiber or Not?

This Deep Dive is generously sponsored by Infinite Vessels, a gender fluid line creating clothing with an emphasis on comfort and joy. Committed to making garments in a conscious manner, Infinite Vessels garments are proudly knitted locally in New York City. Use code NEW20 for 20% off.

You might have been hearing about how terrible cotton is for the environment. Scary, huge numbers keep popping up in the media about cotton’s gargantuan water and pesticide use. That it’s poisoning farmers and fields. That it’s ruining the soil and sucking water out of the environment.

So, does that mean environmentalists shouldn’t wear cotton clothing? Let’s break this down once and for all.

The Negative Environmental Impacts of Cotton 

Cotton is often criticized as a fashion fiber for two reasons: its water use, and its pesticide and synthetic fertilizer use. 

Cotton’s Use of Pesticides and Fertilizers

Cotton, like most commodity conventional crops, uses pesticides and synthetic fertilizers in the growing process. These manmade inputs can kill beneficial insects, harm the health of workers who apply it, harm soil health, and run off into nearby waterways, damaging aquatic ecosystems. 

But let’s clear this up. Cotton does not consume 25% of pesticides sold globally as it is often reported. It uses a little less than 5% of pesticides globally, according to 2019 ICAC data. 

Even setting aside that fake, eye-popping number, cotton does take up only an estimated 2.1% of land, so its pesticide use is a bit outsized compared to other crops. There is definitely a need for more support for smallholder farmers so they can reduce their use of pesticides. 

Fortunately, there are ways to reduce pesticide use on cotton, or eliminate it altogether. 

Better Cotton, a fashion industry-funded program, conducts training for conventional cotton farmers across the globe, teaching them alternative methods for pest control, and getting them to forgo the most hazardous pesticides altogether. 

There’s also certified organic cotton, which is non-genetically modified cotton grown without the use of synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. A rough 2022 estimate by Textile Exchange puts organic cotton at 1.4% of the global cotton market. However, my 2022 investigation for the New York Times called into question whether certified organic cotton was actually grown without pesticides and fertilizers. 

Finally, there’s regeneratively grown cotton, which uses traditional techniques that go beyond organic to improve the soil and sequester carbon. 

The best way to ensure the cotton you’re sourcing has been grown without pesticides and synthetic fertilizers is to ensure that it is traceable back to the farm. 

Cotton’s Water Usage

Some media have called cotton a thirsty crop, saying it can take more than 20,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of cotton. Sometimes this scary and inaccurate water statistic is placed next to statistics on the number of people who lack access to clean drinking water, which implies that drinking water is being taken away from people who need it in order to grow cotton. 

This is misleading. Cotton is drought tolerant and native to arid regions of Central and South America, Africa, as well as Central and South Asia. And half of all cotton is grown using only rainwater, no irrigation needed. According to Elizabeth L. Cline’s report for Transformers Foundation, cotton uses “less irrigated water per hectare than rice, wheat, maize, soybeans and many vegetables.” 

So how thirsty is cotton? There’s no good average cotton water statistic, as cotton’s environmental impact varies so much from country to country and even from farm to farm. At the low end, Israeli farmers, who are famously efficient at irrigation, on average use 98 liters of water to cultivate one kilogram of lint. For the half of cotton that is irrigated, the global average is about 1,200 liters of water to grow a kilogram of cotton, according to the ICAC Cotton Data Book 2020. 

The disappearing Aral Sea is often used as an example of what growing cotton can do to an ecosystem. And yes, cotton probably wasn’t the best choice for a desert area that gets 100 millimeters (4 inches) of rain per year. During mid-season, cotton requires .28 inches of rainfall a day for about 50 days. You’ll get that in parts of India for sure. Not in the various -stans that surround the Aral Basin. There are few agricultural crops that would be a good choice for that kind of ecosystem in fact. (Date palm, millet, and some legumes come to mind.) 

So cotton is a bit of a scapegoat here. The real problem was the Soviet government’s poor planning, with shoddy construction of irrigation infrastructure in the 1960s that diverted the rivers feeding the Aral Sea for agriculture. It’s estimated, depending on the time period, that between 25% and 75% of the water diverted was simply soaked up by the desert and never touched the cotton fields at all.

So again, it’s not the what but the how when it comes to growing cotton. The water used to irrigate cotton –– when it needs irrigation –– can be responsibly sourced, captured and recycled for use on other crops, in farmers’ homes, or even put back into the ecosystem. 

But by and large, cotton growing is not the reason people lack access to safe drinking water. 

The Benefits of Cotton 

In fact, cotton provides plenty of benefits to communities and people worldwide. 

Cotton’s Economic and Social Benefits

Cotton is a cash crop, meaning that unlike some food crops, it can be stored to wait for better market prices instead of rotting. It provides for the livelihood of an estimated 22 million households in 75 countries, and can be intercropped with other food and spice crops. 

The Impact of Cotton on Fashion Waste

 Cotton is very recyclable, the most recyclable fiber, in fact. Right now, most cotton that is recycled is chopped up and rewoven into a fluffy fiber, or combined with virgin cotton for new denim. 

The new Renewcell factory in Sweden takes old cotton and chemically recycles it into a pulp that can be turned into lyocell, Tencel, modal, viscose, and other manmade cellulosic fibers.

Cotton is a plant-based fiber, obviously, so if it is left natural without heavy treatments or finishes, it will biodegrade and not contribute to microfiber pollution. Of course, that is a big if. Like all fibers, cotton can be highly processed and finished. So the simpler the cotton product, the better for biodegradability. Bonus if it is dyed with natural dyes and has natural trims like thread and buttons. 

Cotton’s Toxicity and Chemicals 

Cotton is a great choice for your skin and health, as well as the communities surrounding dye houses – at least compared to synthetic and performance textiles. 

While any fiber can be dyed and finished with hazardous substances, natural fibers are much less likely to have known allergens like disperse dyes and toxic finishes like PFAS, that class of water and stainproofing “forever chemicals” linked to cancer and birth defects. 

Unlike rayon viscose and other manmade cellulosics, cotton doesn’t require harsh and dangerous chemicals for processing into fiber. And unlike plastic fibers like polyester and PVC, it won’t have hormone-disrupting chemicals like phthalates and BPA. 

One risk is that you buy a cotton product that is wrinkle-free. That is most often achieved with a finish that can off-gas formaldehyde, which at high doses has been linked to cancer. So avoid wrinkle-free clothing and wash new pieces before you wear them.

Is There a More Sustainable Alternative to Cotton? 

Some brands are testing out incorporating lyocell or hemp into their formerly 100% cotton products, like denim. Hemp is often compared favorably to cotton on many measures. But as I’ve explained in more detail in my guide to hemp, it’s difficult to process into a fiber that is as soft as cotton. Man made cellulosics have their own problems, such as the dangerous chemicals needed to process trees (which are sometimes cut down from sensitive rainforests) into a fiber suited for fashion. 

So these fibers can’t replace cotton, so much as augment or diversify the fiber mix. 

Polyester has also gotten really good at imitating the softness of cotton. And if you are just looking at lifecycle analyses that compare cotton to plastic, you might get the idea that polyester is better when it comes to climate or water. But from a health, comfort, and petrochemical perspective (polyester is made from petrochemicals; cotton is not), polyester is a poor replacement for cotton. 

So Is Cotton Good… or Bad? 

The most sustainable thing a brand or shopper can do is to try to source cotton consciously if you can. Yes, that can be a tall order for small brands. Cotton is mixed up and thrown together and shipped all over the world. A boll of upland cotton grown in Pakistan can be identical to a boll of cotton grown in Australia, China, and the United States. 

But I’m going to go out on a limb and say cotton, any cotton, is a wonderful choice for a garment. If you can afford organic and traceable cotton, great. But don’t be scared away from all cotton products by some of the scary statistics going around. 

As always, buy fewer things, but with more thought. Love them, take care of them, and and keep them for as long as possible. 

And the great thing about cotton, is that it makes for great cleaning rags when your fashion is truly done!