Ground Water Pollution And Your Clothes: How Your Dollar Can Help

An oil spill is attacking our Gulf Coast and with the help of currents and Hurricane season could spread its slick wrath up the East Coast beaches as well. The ecological toll is still immeasurable but most scientists agree that it will take decades to recover from this disaster. Unfortunately though, our water contamination doesn’t stop at the sandy shores.

A recently released 14-year study by the U.S. Geological Survey determined that more than 1/3 of the population uses drinking water from contaminated public wells. The study, Quality of Water from Public-Supply Wells in the United States, focused on untreated water samples that were taken between 1993 and 2007. It found that 20 percent of the wells surveyed contained one natural or man-made contaminant above standard concentrations. Roughly 80 percent of the wells contained multiple contaminants that were near or above standards.

One such contaminant found was Dieldrin, an insecticide introduced to serve as an alternative to DDT. While it proved to be a persistent insecticide, it was also extremely persistent organic pollutant. Dieldrin does not easily break down and even tends to biomagnify and work its way up the food chain. Because of its toxicity and link to health problems such as Parkinson’s, breast cancer and nerve system damage, it is now banned worldwide. Unfortunately, it remains in our groundwater along with many other pesticides.

As more Americans become aware of the dangers of groundwater contamination, there is a growing movement towards organic fabrics. For years, cotton was the material of choice for most clothing but the hidden danger of cotton growing was kept quiet. Now we know that cotton is considered the “dirtiest crop” due to its heavy use of insecticides. While cotton covers only 2.5% of the world’s cultivated land, it uses 16% of the world’s insecticides. And the EPA lists seven of the top 15 pesticides used on cotton in 2000 in the United States as “possible,” “likely,” “probable,” or “known” human carcinogens.

On your next shopping trip, keep all of this in mind as you choose the fabric of your clothing. Organic farming relies on green manure, compost, biological pest control and organically approved pesticide application and mechanical cultivation to maintain soil productivity and control pests. And the demand for organic products is growing. In 2007, the organic product market reached $46 billion. Consumers are making their demands and companies are responding with more earth-friendly cultivation techniques.

Organic fabrics include cottons, hemp and bamboo. Bamboo, in particular, has an advantage in organic farming as the plant requires no pesticides or fertilizers to grown. Additionally, bamboo can be harvested with removal from the soil and will regenerate quickly. A bamboo plant can grow up to 24 inches a day which is amazing when you consider that some oak trees can take 120 years to reach maturity.

Visit Green Earth Bamboo to learn more about bamboo as a smart alternative for your wardrobe. Offering everything from bamboo clothes to a bamboo bath towel, Green Earth can help you take one step towards a greener lifestyle.

Not wanting to sound alarmist, it is noted in the groundwater study that “Detections of contaminants do not necessarily indicate a concern for human health because USGS analytical methods can detect many contaminants at concentrations that are 100-fold to 1,000-fold lower than human-health benchmarks.”

However, Patricia Toccalino, lead scientist and Hydrologist with USGS, did note that “assessing contaminants in these small amounts helps to track emerging issues in our water resources and to identify contaminants that may warrant inclusion in future monitoring.”

Take the step today to choose organic fabrics that require no dangerous insecticides or pesticides and help make future monitoring of our groundwater crystal clear.