Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
How to get rid of chemicals in fabrics
http://oecotextiles.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/how-to-get-rid-of-chemicals-in-fabrics-hint-trick-question/
Can you wash or otherwise clean conventional fabrics to remove all the toxic residues so that you’d end up with a fabric that’s as safe as an organic fabric? It seems a reasonable question, and sure would be an easy fix if the answer was yes, wouldn’t it? But let’s explore this question, because it’s really interesting.
Let’s start by looking at one common type of fabric: a lightweight, 4 ounce cotton printed quilting fabric. In this case the answer is no (and as you’ll find out, our answers will always be no, but read on to see why).
The toxic chemicals in conventionally produced (versus “organically” produced) cotton fabric that cannot be washed out come from both:
1. the pesticides and herbicides applied to the crops when growing the cotton and
2. from the dyes and printing inks and other chemicals used to turn the fibers into fabric.
Let’s first look at the pesticides used during growing of the fiber.
Conventional cotton cultivation uses copious amounts of chemical inputs. These pesticides are absorbed by the leaves and the roots of the plants. Most pesticides applied to plants have a half life of less than 4 days before degredation.(1) So pesticides can be found in the plants, but over time the chemicals are degraded so the amount to be found in any bale of cotton fiber is highly depending on time of harvest and how recently the crop had been sprayed.
Gas chromatography easily shows that common pesticides used on cotton crops are found in the fibers, such as: Hexachlorobenzene, Aldrin, Dieldrin, DDT and DDT. (2) Look up the toxicity profiles of those chemicals if you want encouragement to keep even tiny amounts of them out of your house. With time, as the cotton fibers degrade, these residual chemicals are released.
We could find no studies which looked at the fibers themselves to see if pesticides could be removed by washing, but we did find a study of laundering pesticide-soiled clothing to see if the pesticide could be removed. Remember, this study (and others like it) was done only on protective clothing worn by workers who are applying the pesticides – so the pesticides are on the outside of the fibers - NOT on the fibers themselves during growth. The study found that, after six washings in a home washing machine, the percent of pesticide remaining in a textile substrate (cotton) ranged from 1% to 42%. (3)
If you’re trying to avoid pesticides which are applied to cotton crops, you’d do better to avoid cottonseed oil than the fiber (if processed conventionally) because we eat more of the cotton crop than we wear. Most of the damage done by the use of pesticides is to our environment – our groundwater and soils.
Before we go further, let’s do away with the notion that organic cotton, woven conventionally, is safe to use. Not so. There are so many chemicals used during the processing phase of fabric production, including detergents, brighteners, bleaches, softeners, and many others that the final fabric is a chemical smorgasbord, and is by weight at least 10% synthetic chemicals (4), many of which have been proven to cause harm to humans.
The chemicals used in conventionally processed organic cotton fabrics make the concerns about pesticides used in growing the crop pale in comparison: If we use the new lower chemical inputs that GMO cotton has introduced, it’s now possible to produce 1 lb. of conventionally grown cotton, using just 2.85 oz of chemical pesticides – that’s down from over 4.5 oz used during the 1990’s – a 58% decrease. So to produce enough cotton fiber to make 25 lbs of cloth, it would require just 4.45 lbs of chemical pesticides, fertilizers and insecticides. Processing that fiber into cloth, however, requires between 2.5 – 25 lbs. of chemicals. If we take the midpoint, that’s 12.5 lbs of processing chemicals – almost three times what it took to produce the fiber!
There are over 2,000 different kinds of chemicals regularly used in textile production, many of them so toxic that they’re outlawed in other products. And this toxic bath is used on both organic fibers as well as non-organic fibers – the fibers are just the first step in the weaving and finishing of a fabric. (Make sure you buy organic fibers that are also organically processed or you do not have an organic fabric. An organic fabric is one that is third party certified to the Global Organic Textile Standard. ) Fabrics – even those made with organic fibers like organic cotton IF they are conventionally produced and not produced according to GOTS - contain chemicals such as formaldehyde, azo dyes, dioxin, and heavy metals. Some of the chemicals are there as residues from the production, others are added to give certain characteristics to the fabrics such as color, softness, crispness, wrinkle resistance, etc. And these chemicals are designed to do a job, and do it well. They are designed to NOT wash out. The dyes, for instance, are called “fiber reactive” dyes because they chemically bind with the fiber molecules in order to remain color fast. The chemical components of your fabric dye is there as long as the color is there. Many dyes contain a whole host of toxic chemicals. The heavy metals are common components of fabric dyes. They are part of the dye and part of the fabric fiber as long as the color remains.
And these chemicals are found in the fabrics we live with. Studies have shown that the chemicals are available to our bodies: dioxins (such as the 75 polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and 135 polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs)) were found in new clothing in concentrations ranging from low pg/g to high 300 ng/g in several studies. (5)
How do these chemicals get into our bodies from the textiles? Your skin is the largest organ of your body, and it’s highly permeable. So skin absorption is one route; another is through inhalation of the chemicals (if they are the type that evaporate – and if they do evaporate, each chemical has a different rate of evaporation, from minutes or hours to weeks or years) and a third route: Think of microscopic particles of fabric that abrade each time we use a towel, sit on a sofa, put on our clothes. These microscopic particles fly into the air and then we breathe them in or ingest them. Or they fall into the dust of our homes, where people and pets, especially crawling children and pets, continue to breathe or ingest them.
In the United States, often the standards for exposure to these toxins is limited to workplace standards (based on limits in water or air) or they’re product specific: the FDA sets a maximum limit of cadmium in bottled water to be 0.005 mg/L for example. So that leaves lots of avenues for continued contamination!
The bad news is that existing legislation on chemicals fails to prohibit the use of hazardous chemicals in consumer products -–and the textile industry, in particular, has no organized voice to advocate for change. It’s a complex, highly fragmented industry, and it’s up to consumers to demand companies change their policies. In the United States we’re waking up to the dangers of industrial chemicals, but rather than banning a certain chemical in ALL products, the United States is taking a piece meal approach: for example, certain azo dyes (like Red 2G) are prohibited in foods – but only in foods, not fabrics. But just because the product is not meant to be eaten doesn’t mean we’re not absorbing that Red 2G. Phthalates are outlawed in California and Washington state in children’s toys – but not in their clothing or bedding. A Greenpeace study of a Walt Disney PVC Winne the Pooh raincoat found that it contained an astounding 320,000 mg/kg of total phthalates in the coat – or 32% of the weight of the raincoat! (6)
Concerns continue to mount about the safety of textiles and apparel products used by U.S. consumers. As reports of potential health threats continue to come to light, “we are quite concerned about potentially toxic materials that U.S. consumers are exposed to everyday in textiles and apparel available in this country,” said David Brookstein, Sc.D., dean of the School of Engineering and Textile and director of Philadelphia University’s Institute for Textile and Apparel Product Safety (ITAPS).
The good news is that there are fabrics that have been produced without resorting to these hazardous chemicals. Look for GOTS! Demand safe fabrics!
(1) “Degradation of Pesiticides on Plant Surfaces amd It’s prediction – a case study of tea leaves”, Zongmao, C and Haibin, W., Tea Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang, China. http://www.springerlink.com/content/vg5w5467743r5p41/
(2) “Extraction of Residual Chlorinated Pesticides from Cotton Matrix, El-Nagar, Schantz et.al, Journal of Textile and Apparel, Technology and management, Vol 4, Issue 2, Fall 2004
(3) Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 1992 (23, 85-90)
(4) Laucasse and Baumann, Textile Chemicals: Environmental Data and Facts, Springer, New York, 2004, page 609.
(5) “Dioxins and Dioxin-Like Persistent Organic Pollutants in Textiles” Krizanec, B and Le marechal, Al, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Smetanova 17, SI-2000, Maribor, Slovenia, 2006; hrcak.srce.hr/file/6721
(6) http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/greece/137368/toxic-childrensware-by-disney.pdf
Can you wash or otherwise clean conventional fabrics to remove all the toxic residues so that you’d end up with a fabric that’s as safe as an organic fabric? It seems a reasonable question, and sure would be an easy fix if the answer was yes, wouldn’t it? But let’s explore this question, because it’s really interesting.
Let’s start by looking at one common type of fabric: a lightweight, 4 ounce cotton printed quilting fabric. In this case the answer is no (and as you’ll find out, our answers will always be no, but read on to see why).
The toxic chemicals in conventionally produced (versus “organically” produced) cotton fabric that cannot be washed out come from both:
1. the pesticides and herbicides applied to the crops when growing the cotton and
2. from the dyes and printing inks and other chemicals used to turn the fibers into fabric.
Let’s first look at the pesticides used during growing of the fiber.
Conventional cotton cultivation uses copious amounts of chemical inputs. These pesticides are absorbed by the leaves and the roots of the plants. Most pesticides applied to plants have a half life of less than 4 days before degredation.(1) So pesticides can be found in the plants, but over time the chemicals are degraded so the amount to be found in any bale of cotton fiber is highly depending on time of harvest and how recently the crop had been sprayed.
Gas chromatography easily shows that common pesticides used on cotton crops are found in the fibers, such as: Hexachlorobenzene, Aldrin, Dieldrin, DDT and DDT. (2) Look up the toxicity profiles of those chemicals if you want encouragement to keep even tiny amounts of them out of your house. With time, as the cotton fibers degrade, these residual chemicals are released.
We could find no studies which looked at the fibers themselves to see if pesticides could be removed by washing, but we did find a study of laundering pesticide-soiled clothing to see if the pesticide could be removed. Remember, this study (and others like it) was done only on protective clothing worn by workers who are applying the pesticides – so the pesticides are on the outside of the fibers - NOT on the fibers themselves during growth. The study found that, after six washings in a home washing machine, the percent of pesticide remaining in a textile substrate (cotton) ranged from 1% to 42%. (3)
If you’re trying to avoid pesticides which are applied to cotton crops, you’d do better to avoid cottonseed oil than the fiber (if processed conventionally) because we eat more of the cotton crop than we wear. Most of the damage done by the use of pesticides is to our environment – our groundwater and soils.
Before we go further, let’s do away with the notion that organic cotton, woven conventionally, is safe to use. Not so. There are so many chemicals used during the processing phase of fabric production, including detergents, brighteners, bleaches, softeners, and many others that the final fabric is a chemical smorgasbord, and is by weight at least 10% synthetic chemicals (4), many of which have been proven to cause harm to humans.
The chemicals used in conventionally processed organic cotton fabrics make the concerns about pesticides used in growing the crop pale in comparison: If we use the new lower chemical inputs that GMO cotton has introduced, it’s now possible to produce 1 lb. of conventionally grown cotton, using just 2.85 oz of chemical pesticides – that’s down from over 4.5 oz used during the 1990’s – a 58% decrease. So to produce enough cotton fiber to make 25 lbs of cloth, it would require just 4.45 lbs of chemical pesticides, fertilizers and insecticides. Processing that fiber into cloth, however, requires between 2.5 – 25 lbs. of chemicals. If we take the midpoint, that’s 12.5 lbs of processing chemicals – almost three times what it took to produce the fiber!
There are over 2,000 different kinds of chemicals regularly used in textile production, many of them so toxic that they’re outlawed in other products. And this toxic bath is used on both organic fibers as well as non-organic fibers – the fibers are just the first step in the weaving and finishing of a fabric. (Make sure you buy organic fibers that are also organically processed or you do not have an organic fabric. An organic fabric is one that is third party certified to the Global Organic Textile Standard. ) Fabrics – even those made with organic fibers like organic cotton IF they are conventionally produced and not produced according to GOTS - contain chemicals such as formaldehyde, azo dyes, dioxin, and heavy metals. Some of the chemicals are there as residues from the production, others are added to give certain characteristics to the fabrics such as color, softness, crispness, wrinkle resistance, etc. And these chemicals are designed to do a job, and do it well. They are designed to NOT wash out. The dyes, for instance, are called “fiber reactive” dyes because they chemically bind with the fiber molecules in order to remain color fast. The chemical components of your fabric dye is there as long as the color is there. Many dyes contain a whole host of toxic chemicals. The heavy metals are common components of fabric dyes. They are part of the dye and part of the fabric fiber as long as the color remains.
And these chemicals are found in the fabrics we live with. Studies have shown that the chemicals are available to our bodies: dioxins (such as the 75 polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and 135 polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs)) were found in new clothing in concentrations ranging from low pg/g to high 300 ng/g in several studies. (5)
How do these chemicals get into our bodies from the textiles? Your skin is the largest organ of your body, and it’s highly permeable. So skin absorption is one route; another is through inhalation of the chemicals (if they are the type that evaporate – and if they do evaporate, each chemical has a different rate of evaporation, from minutes or hours to weeks or years) and a third route: Think of microscopic particles of fabric that abrade each time we use a towel, sit on a sofa, put on our clothes. These microscopic particles fly into the air and then we breathe them in or ingest them. Or they fall into the dust of our homes, where people and pets, especially crawling children and pets, continue to breathe or ingest them.
In the United States, often the standards for exposure to these toxins is limited to workplace standards (based on limits in water or air) or they’re product specific: the FDA sets a maximum limit of cadmium in bottled water to be 0.005 mg/L for example. So that leaves lots of avenues for continued contamination!
The bad news is that existing legislation on chemicals fails to prohibit the use of hazardous chemicals in consumer products -–and the textile industry, in particular, has no organized voice to advocate for change. It’s a complex, highly fragmented industry, and it’s up to consumers to demand companies change their policies. In the United States we’re waking up to the dangers of industrial chemicals, but rather than banning a certain chemical in ALL products, the United States is taking a piece meal approach: for example, certain azo dyes (like Red 2G) are prohibited in foods – but only in foods, not fabrics. But just because the product is not meant to be eaten doesn’t mean we’re not absorbing that Red 2G. Phthalates are outlawed in California and Washington state in children’s toys – but not in their clothing or bedding. A Greenpeace study of a Walt Disney PVC Winne the Pooh raincoat found that it contained an astounding 320,000 mg/kg of total phthalates in the coat – or 32% of the weight of the raincoat! (6)
Concerns continue to mount about the safety of textiles and apparel products used by U.S. consumers. As reports of potential health threats continue to come to light, “we are quite concerned about potentially toxic materials that U.S. consumers are exposed to everyday in textiles and apparel available in this country,” said David Brookstein, Sc.D., dean of the School of Engineering and Textile and director of Philadelphia University’s Institute for Textile and Apparel Product Safety (ITAPS).
The good news is that there are fabrics that have been produced without resorting to these hazardous chemicals. Look for GOTS! Demand safe fabrics!
(1) “Degradation of Pesiticides on Plant Surfaces amd It’s prediction – a case study of tea leaves”, Zongmao, C and Haibin, W., Tea Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang, China. http://www.springerlink.com/content/vg5w5467743r5p41/
(2) “Extraction of Residual Chlorinated Pesticides from Cotton Matrix, El-Nagar, Schantz et.al, Journal of Textile and Apparel, Technology and management, Vol 4, Issue 2, Fall 2004
(3) Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 1992 (23, 85-90)
(4) Laucasse and Baumann, Textile Chemicals: Environmental Data and Facts, Springer, New York, 2004, page 609.
(5) “Dioxins and Dioxin-Like Persistent Organic Pollutants in Textiles” Krizanec, B and Le marechal, Al, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Smetanova 17, SI-2000, Maribor, Slovenia, 2006; hrcak.srce.hr/file/6721
(6) http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/greece/137368/toxic-childrensware-by-disney.pdf
WHY IS ISRAEL ATTACKING PALESTINE: THE TRUTH
As
always, mainstream media networks in North America have bombarded us
with a description of what’s happening in the Middle East. All
mainstream media networks have been used as propaganda that justify
actions of war for Israel.What is really happening? What’s going on and
what is the Israeli Palestinian conflict really about?
It’s all a plan to help introduce ‘A New
World Order’. The same ones that create the chaos are the same ones that
would like to propose the solution. If enough chaos is created, it
gives more justification to the solution, and gives rise to a potential
global conflict between Israel and Iran. By using media to manipulate
the population, justification of action is possible. Take 9/11 for
example, a false flag terrorist attack used to justify the invasion of
Iraq. But things are changing, humanity is waking up to truth and in
doing so we change the future timeline of planet Earth. We are moving
through a transition, nobody said it would be easy but we are well on
our way. Humanity is waking up rapidly to what has really been playing
out on the planet.
All information regarding world events is
in the hands of a small group of multinational corporations: Time
Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, News Corporation and NBC Universal. Within
these corporations, connections can be made to the health,
pharmaceutical, energy (oil) and educational industries which lead
directly to the Rockefeller and Rothschild families, to name a few. It’s
no longer a secret that a small group of multinational corporations are
in control of the worlds resources , media, and major international
organizations. Having control of these entities and organizations they
are easily able to manipulate and control the perception of human beings
when it comes to international conflict.
In November of 1917, the Balfour
Declaration was made by Baron Rothschild. Lord Rothschild was a leading
member of the British Zionist Federation. It was established in 1899 to
create and advocate for a permanent homeland for the Jewish people.
Zionism is defined as a form of nationalism of Jewish people that
support a Jewish nation state in the land defined as Israel. The Balfour
declaration was made to allow a Jewish nation state to occupy
Palestinian land. The Rothschild family controlled Britain, and also
pushed the Mandate for Palestine. The Mandate for Palestine was set up
by the British to include a national home for the Jewish people in
Palestine. All of these mandates, all of these laws created out of thin
air to impose a political movement called Zionism, to remove inhabitants
from their land. Are you surprised? Gaza has been similar to a
concentration camp, a cultural Genocide. These family bloodlines date
back to ancient Rome and Aristocratic families, they are Illuminati.
It’s not a surprise that the Rothschild name sits atop of major Canadian
mining companies (Barrick Gold) , and were directly involved with the
Genocide of First Nations as-well. Illuminati control has been world
wide for many years.
A
large portion of the planet’s population has been made to believe that
Zionism is a race, including a large portion of the Jewish community.
Zionism is not a race, it is a political organization that has had an
agenda with regards to Gaza. A large majority of Jewish people are
fundamentally opposed to Zionism.Zionism is not about what’s right and what’s beneficial for Jewish people. Jewish people and Palestinian people are its victims not its beneficiaries. That’s why I call this Rothschild Zionism, it was created by them and it is controlled by them. It was created as a secret society within the web to massively contribute to the control of global society. It is a political system, at its core a secret society. – David Icke
You have the Rothschild family using its
power and influence to push Zionist (a false representation of Jewish
people) occupation in Palestinian land. Many people have been murdered
behind the lines of red tape. What has been happening in Palestine has
been a goal of the global control matrix, and they use religion to their
advantage.
Not only have the Rothschild family had
it’s hands in the occupation of Gaza, in 1947 the Rockefeller family
stepped in. The Rockefeller family provides funding to the United
Nations, and have created many different councils to govern foreign
relations since. In 1947 the United Nations created a resolution for the
problem proposed by the Rothschild family (the occupation of
Palestine). You see how they do things? A problem was created, the same
ones who created the problem are proposing the solution, clever no? They
created a resolution that implemented a plan to create Independent Arab
and Jewish states within Palestine. This was not a resolution, but an
excuse to further push the Illuminati occupation of Palestine. In doing
so, they create and push a clash of people and cultures creating the
environment we see today. Many people have been manipulated and steered
like puppets.
You have families on both sides of the
ocean getting involved with the take over and extermination of
Palestinian occupants, it has been similar to a concentration camp.
These families own the monetary system and control the worlds resources,
they create international organisations to propose solutions to the
problems they create.
What is Israel? Israel was created the
year after the United Nations made their decision for a ‘separate Jewish
state’. The United States approved and recognized the need for this,
and began their support of Israel. The Rothschild and Rockefeller
families, the Illuminati are directly behind this invasion. They are
Israel, and they control Israel.
The Knesset is the legislature of Israel,
it has the power to overrule all decisions made by the government, it’s
the hub of Israel. It was funded by the Rothschild family. If you look
where the money is flowing, these families and organizations have been
behind all the decisions with regards to Israel.
Please feel free to research and verify any information presented in this article. Please feel free to request sources for any specific statement
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2012/11/22/why-is-israel-attacking-palestine-the-truth/
Do You Know What Toxic Chemicals Lurk in Your Clothing?
http://www.naturalnews.com/022803_cotton_chemicals_organic.html
Monday, March 10, 2008 by: Cathy Sherman
NaturalNews) You know that if you eat that sugar-filled cookie, it might spike your insulin, and if you put on cosmetics with chemicals in them, they will probably end up in your blood. But have you ever thought twice about putting on your favorite T-shirt, or snuggling into your cotton sheets?
A growing number of parents are demanding organic cotton clothing and diapers for their babies. Many don't stop with clothing, but have furnished their homes with organic flooring or carpeting, organic mattresses, organic linens, organic window coverings etc. Are they fanatics or do they have scientific evidence to support their lifestyle changes?
Cotton has long been considered by consumers to be the most natural, healthy fabric and they have made it the most popular clothing material. It has been easy to forget that cotton is a crop and as such, it is subject to the same issues as other crops normally considered as food. The last time you drove by a cotton field, did you consider that many of the foods you eat contain a by-product of this very plant?
The cotton plant is comprised of 40% fiber and 60% seed by weight. Once separated in the gin, the fibers go to textile mills, while the seed and various ginning by-products are used for animal feed and human food. For humans this is in the form of cottonseed oil, a very common ingredient in processed foods. The cotton seeds are also used in grain for cattle, which indirectly does enter the food chain in meat and dairy products.
The concerns regarding health stem from the fact that though cotton uses only 2.4% of the world's
agricultural acreage, its cultivation involves 25% of the world's pesticide use, more than any other crop. Most of these are insecticides, but fungicide is another fraction of the total. Also, consider that it takes about one-third of a pound of pesticides and fertilizers to grow enough conventional cotton for just one T-shirt.
In many cases, these poisonous chemicals are applied by spraying from the air, which means they can be
carried and spread by the wind and breathed by people living nearby. It probably is no coincidence that Texans near Lubbock have a high cancer rate, while Lubbock happens to be the world's largest area of cotton cultivation.
The chemicals used in cotton production don't end with cultivation. As an aid in harvesting, herbicides are used to defoliate the plants, making picking easier. Producing a textile from the plants involves more chemicals in the process of bleaching, sizing, dying, straightening, shrink reduction, stain and odor resistance, fireproofing, mothproofing, and static- and wrinkle-reduction. Some of these chemicals are applied with heat, thus bonding them to the cotton fibers.
Several washings are done throughout the process, but some of the softeners and detergents leave a residue that will not totally be removed from the final product. Chemicals often used for finishing include formaldehyde, caustic soda, sulfuric acid, bromines, urea resins, sulfonamides, halogens, and bromines. Some imported clothes are now impregnated with long-lasting disinfectants which are very hard to remove, and whose smell gives them away.
These and the other chemical residues affect people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. Also, people have developed allergic reactions, such as hives, to formaldehyde through skin contact with solutions on durable-press clothing containing formaldehyde. Allergic Contact Dermatitis develops after repeated allergen exposure to dyes and other chemicals and metals. According to a British allergy website, small amounts of perspiration can separate out allergens through several layers of clothing, and leather shoe dyes can leach through socks.
European researchers found antimony, a fire-retardant chemical used in some crib mattresses, leaches through the mattress; they connected this finding to SIDS deaths. The livers of autopsied infants were also found to contain high amounts of antimony. Europe is moving away from flame retardants and requires them to be proven safe before use. Yet US laws require flame retardants be applied to many kinds of children's clothing.
One study, which included an 18-month old baby, found high levels of flame retardants in the subjects' blood. The results were two to three times the levels that are known to cause neurological damage in rats.
Though many people believe that chemicals can leach from clothing into the body through the skin, there is no research to prove this. Sodium Tripolyphosphate, a chemical used in some laundry detergents, is claimed to be easily absorbed through the skin from clothes, but this was never proven.
A chemist will say that it is impossible for chemicals to transfer through the skin from dry clothing.
Chemicals enter the skin through the process of osmosis, which requires a moist medium in order for this to occur. Studies are needed to determine if sweat or urine in wet diapers constitute enough of that medium.
Possibly the mechanism by which the chemicals enter the body is through off-gassing of the chemical which is then breathed in. There have been no real studies proving this either. The baby in the previously-cited study crawled on a carpeted floor. Carpeting usually contains flame retardants.
One thing is clear though: organically produced cotton has few of the issues of conventional cotton. Not only are GMO seeds and chemical pesticides not used, but usually the picking is done by hand. Instead of using chemicals to defoliate for easier harvesting, the organic grower relies mostly on the seasonal freeze to defoliate the plants.
Synthetic fertilizers are not used, in favor of crop rotation, which increases the organic matter in the soil. Weeds are removed and controlled by hand and by hoeing. Pest control is achieved by bringing in natural predators, using beneficial insects and certain trap crops which lure insects away.
The processing of the organic fibers uses different procedures in milling and in the textile
manufacturing. Chemical finishes for shrink resistance, permanent press etc. are not applied or are minimal, and use of natural rather than synthetic dyes are encouraged by co-ops and trade organizations.
Therefore, at this time we cannot say that the non-organic cotton shirts and pajamas you wear and the non-organic sheets you sleep on are toxic. However, we do know that their cultivation is toxic to the field workers. They have a high rate of cancer and death from suicide.
We can state that the by-products of conventional cotton that appear in our food have been subjected to toxins in their production. We can say that their production pollutes rivers and soil and causes other environmental damage.
So you don't have to throw away all of your conventional cotton clothing just yet, unless it causes an
allergic reaction. However, we all might do well to request that future clothing and linen purchases of cotton be of the organic variety. If the demand increases, more fields will be raised organically, resulting in health benefits for the environment and the workers and residents near the fields, as well as for all of us who consume cottonseed oil in foods.
What's in your clothing today? Be informed; it does make a difference.
For further information:
(http://ezinearticles.com/?Organic-Cotton---Am-I-Bothered?&id=650235)
(http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_6347.cfm)
(http://www.bioline.org.br/request?dv05081)
(http://www.checnet.org/healthehouse/chemicals/chemicals-detail2.asp?M...)
Monday, March 10, 2008 by: Cathy Sherman
NaturalNews) You know that if you eat that sugar-filled cookie, it might spike your insulin, and if you put on cosmetics with chemicals in them, they will probably end up in your blood. But have you ever thought twice about putting on your favorite T-shirt, or snuggling into your cotton sheets?
A growing number of parents are demanding organic cotton clothing and diapers for their babies. Many don't stop with clothing, but have furnished their homes with organic flooring or carpeting, organic mattresses, organic linens, organic window coverings etc. Are they fanatics or do they have scientific evidence to support their lifestyle changes?
Cotton has long been considered by consumers to be the most natural, healthy fabric and they have made it the most popular clothing material. It has been easy to forget that cotton is a crop and as such, it is subject to the same issues as other crops normally considered as food. The last time you drove by a cotton field, did you consider that many of the foods you eat contain a by-product of this very plant?
The cotton plant is comprised of 40% fiber and 60% seed by weight. Once separated in the gin, the fibers go to textile mills, while the seed and various ginning by-products are used for animal feed and human food. For humans this is in the form of cottonseed oil, a very common ingredient in processed foods. The cotton seeds are also used in grain for cattle, which indirectly does enter the food chain in meat and dairy products.
The concerns regarding health stem from the fact that though cotton uses only 2.4% of the world's
agricultural acreage, its cultivation involves 25% of the world's pesticide use, more than any other crop. Most of these are insecticides, but fungicide is another fraction of the total. Also, consider that it takes about one-third of a pound of pesticides and fertilizers to grow enough conventional cotton for just one T-shirt.
In many cases, these poisonous chemicals are applied by spraying from the air, which means they can be
carried and spread by the wind and breathed by people living nearby. It probably is no coincidence that Texans near Lubbock have a high cancer rate, while Lubbock happens to be the world's largest area of cotton cultivation.
The chemicals used in cotton production don't end with cultivation. As an aid in harvesting, herbicides are used to defoliate the plants, making picking easier. Producing a textile from the plants involves more chemicals in the process of bleaching, sizing, dying, straightening, shrink reduction, stain and odor resistance, fireproofing, mothproofing, and static- and wrinkle-reduction. Some of these chemicals are applied with heat, thus bonding them to the cotton fibers.
Several washings are done throughout the process, but some of the softeners and detergents leave a residue that will not totally be removed from the final product. Chemicals often used for finishing include formaldehyde, caustic soda, sulfuric acid, bromines, urea resins, sulfonamides, halogens, and bromines. Some imported clothes are now impregnated with long-lasting disinfectants which are very hard to remove, and whose smell gives them away.
These and the other chemical residues affect people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. Also, people have developed allergic reactions, such as hives, to formaldehyde through skin contact with solutions on durable-press clothing containing formaldehyde. Allergic Contact Dermatitis develops after repeated allergen exposure to dyes and other chemicals and metals. According to a British allergy website, small amounts of perspiration can separate out allergens through several layers of clothing, and leather shoe dyes can leach through socks.
European researchers found antimony, a fire-retardant chemical used in some crib mattresses, leaches through the mattress; they connected this finding to SIDS deaths. The livers of autopsied infants were also found to contain high amounts of antimony. Europe is moving away from flame retardants and requires them to be proven safe before use. Yet US laws require flame retardants be applied to many kinds of children's clothing.
One study, which included an 18-month old baby, found high levels of flame retardants in the subjects' blood. The results were two to three times the levels that are known to cause neurological damage in rats.
Though many people believe that chemicals can leach from clothing into the body through the skin, there is no research to prove this. Sodium Tripolyphosphate, a chemical used in some laundry detergents, is claimed to be easily absorbed through the skin from clothes, but this was never proven.
A chemist will say that it is impossible for chemicals to transfer through the skin from dry clothing.
Chemicals enter the skin through the process of osmosis, which requires a moist medium in order for this to occur. Studies are needed to determine if sweat or urine in wet diapers constitute enough of that medium.
Possibly the mechanism by which the chemicals enter the body is through off-gassing of the chemical which is then breathed in. There have been no real studies proving this either. The baby in the previously-cited study crawled on a carpeted floor. Carpeting usually contains flame retardants.
One thing is clear though: organically produced cotton has few of the issues of conventional cotton. Not only are GMO seeds and chemical pesticides not used, but usually the picking is done by hand. Instead of using chemicals to defoliate for easier harvesting, the organic grower relies mostly on the seasonal freeze to defoliate the plants.
Synthetic fertilizers are not used, in favor of crop rotation, which increases the organic matter in the soil. Weeds are removed and controlled by hand and by hoeing. Pest control is achieved by bringing in natural predators, using beneficial insects and certain trap crops which lure insects away.
The processing of the organic fibers uses different procedures in milling and in the textile
manufacturing. Chemical finishes for shrink resistance, permanent press etc. are not applied or are minimal, and use of natural rather than synthetic dyes are encouraged by co-ops and trade organizations.
Therefore, at this time we cannot say that the non-organic cotton shirts and pajamas you wear and the non-organic sheets you sleep on are toxic. However, we do know that their cultivation is toxic to the field workers. They have a high rate of cancer and death from suicide.
We can state that the by-products of conventional cotton that appear in our food have been subjected to toxins in their production. We can say that their production pollutes rivers and soil and causes other environmental damage.
So you don't have to throw away all of your conventional cotton clothing just yet, unless it causes an
allergic reaction. However, we all might do well to request that future clothing and linen purchases of cotton be of the organic variety. If the demand increases, more fields will be raised organically, resulting in health benefits for the environment and the workers and residents near the fields, as well as for all of us who consume cottonseed oil in foods.
What's in your clothing today? Be informed; it does make a difference.
For further information:
(http://ezinearticles.com/?Organic-Cotton---Am-I-Bothered?&id=650235)
(http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_6347.cfm)
(http://www.bioline.org.br/request?dv05081)
(http://www.checnet.org/healthehouse/chemicals/chemicals-detail2.asp?M...)
About the author
Cathy Sherman is a freelance writer with a major interest in natural health and in encouraging others to take responsibility for their health. She can be reached through www.devardoc.com.
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