[google is very unhelpful, it’s broken now. I can’t find any posts explaining the specific thing I want to know]
Was asked this question by a friend.
When we say that producing one item of clothing uses x amount of water. She doesn’t see the harm because the water used to grow cotton doesn’t disappear “it’s part of the cycle”.
Pollution must be a factor right? There is a difference between drinking water, saltwater and contaminated water? (Surely they’re not using clean drinking water for production?)
Exasperated by the fact that production is usually performed in areas with poor regulation/infrastructure.
(Is it inherently damaging, or damaging because of how it’s performed?)
Is the water “used” because it becomes vapor? Is it used because the molecules are taken apart? Either way shouldn’t this technically be reversible?
[I am not very articulate, and I find it very difficult to organize my thoughts to words. This question ended up frustratingly inprecise!]
Edit: thanks for the good responses:)
In: Biology
The issue isn’t that “water is gone” but “**fresh** water is gone”.
Fresh water, water usable for cleaning, drinking, cooking, etc, is harder to come by. It takes money and resources to a.) get fresh water, and b.) send it to whoever needs it.
There’s another way of thinking in that clothing comes from plants. Plants require water. A cotton farm, to produce enough material to make one piece of clothing, will need to grow and harvest Y amount of cotton. And it takes X amount of water to grow that many cotton plants.
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