on Sunday, April 13th, 2008
- Currency notes are made out of cotton paper.
- There is more cotton grown globally than any other non-edible crop.
- The majority of cotton, by weight, ends up in our food supply. Cottonseed oil is used in everything from cookies to canned tuna.
- The fiber from one 227 kg cotton bale can produce 215 pairs of jeans, 250 single bed sheets, 750 shirts, 1,200 T-shirts, 2,100 pairs of boxer shorts, 3,000 nappies, 4,300 pairs of socks or 680,000 cotton balls.
- It takes about one-third of a pound of pesticides and fertilizers to grow enough non-organic cotton for just one T-shirt.
- Each year, non-organic cotton producers around the world use nearly $2.6 billion worth of pesticides — that’s more than 10% of the world’s pesticides and nearly 25 per cent of the world’s insecticides.
- Non-organic cotton uses more insecticides than any other crop.
- Almost all parts of the cotton plant are used in some way, including the cottonseed, lint (raw cotton fiber), stalk and hull (shell).
