organic cotton

People seem to love going organic these days. My friend was just telling me today that she is planning to buy organic towels for her house. Up until today, I’ve only heard of organic foods, so this was new to me. Being organic means roughly the same thing in this case. The cotton that the towel was made with was grown naturally, and toxic chemicals were not used (such as herbicides).

So I took a look and was surprised to find that they don’t even cost that much. Here’s one: Organic Towel from Pottery Barn. For about 20 bucks, you can have a nice soft towel made with organic cotton, that’s worth at least 5 minutes of conversation at your next dinner party!

Organic cotton also has quite a following now. But there are many limitations to the growth of organic cotton, most notable are the costs involved. So a group of people set up the Sustainable Cotton Project, a project that spawned “Cleaner Cotton”. If you check out the site: sustainablecotton.org, you’ll find that there are a number of growers (many of which are in California) and manufacturers that are involved in the Cleaner Cotton Campaign, which raises awareness and demand for clean, California-grown cotton.

Cleaner Cotton is not fully organic, but it’s worth mentioning because it presents the middle ground toward organic cotton. Much like hybrid-electric cars present a middle-ground between normal cars and full-electric cars, Cleaner Cotton greatly reduces chemical usage (about 73% fewer chemicals) vs conventional cotton growing methods, with direct benefits to the environment.

ex.

Normal Cotton è Cleaner Cotton™ è Organic Cotton

Normal Cars è Hybrid Cars è Electric Cars

Add to this the fact that California-grown cotton is often considered one of the highest grade cottons in the world, and you have a winning campaign to reduce overall contaminants while taking a big step toward going pure organic. As with everything, often the goal can only be achieved by taking one step at a time. You can help too, just look for organic cotton or Cleaner Cotton in your linens from now on.