Some 100% organic cotton shirts are a 100% ripoff
Some 100% organic cotton shirts are a 100% ripoff
A complete fabrication
There’s a good chance your organic cotton T-shirt isn’t, well, organic. The demand for sustainable fashion is on the rise, but brands are struggling to deliver. (Even Patagonia has stopped using the word “sustainable”.) That struggle is especially real when it comes to organic cotton. Certified to be produced without synthetic pesticides or genetically modified seeds, the fabric also comes at a premium: An organic Michael Kors hoodie will cost you $25 more than its conventional counterpart. Spurred by demand, India, the world’s largest organic cotton producer, has more than doubled its production in the last four years. But industry insiders say those numbers are impossible. In fact, an estimated 50–80% of “organic cotton” from India is just regular cotton.
The switch happens during certification. Paper certificates are issued at every step of the supply chain, from gin to manufacturer, but inspections are done by local officials who are paid by the very farmers and ginners they’re inspecting. Because there’s no database tracking certificates, a shipment of supposedly certified organic cotton can easily be swapped with the regular stuff — at up to quadruple the volume. An international certification org found evidence of fraud in 2020, but outside of banning bad actors, little has been done to improve the system. The USDA also ended its agreement to recognize organic products certified under Indian authority, but you might want to think twice before shelling out for an “organic cotton” label.
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