A Message from Neil

Neil Young
2014-07-12, Hyde Park, London, England
Photo Paolo Brillo |Facebook
(Click photo to enlarge)
July 31, 2014
A message from Neil Young:
     
Friends, on my last tour of Europe, I started to give our music loving audience free organic cotton T-shirts as a way to show that we appreciate you. Your shirts' cotton is grown in the most earth friendly way. Feel it. Isn't it the best cotton you have ever felt?

      When you wear your Earth shirt, vow to protect Earth in any way you can. Change things in your life to save Earth.

      Today, I have taken the steps to remove sales of non-organic T-shirts and other products that damage the
Earth from my concerts and my web stores. Wherever I can, I vow to protect Earth.
Here's why:

      Unlike the shirt we have given to you, if your t-shirt is made of non-organic, polluting and damaging cotton - the most widely used textile crop on earth - covering almost 5% of Earth's cultivated land, you are supporting:

      25% of all petrochemical based pesticides, fungicides, herbicides used globally.
Pesticides

      The Environmental Protection Agency considers seven of the top 15 pesticides used on cotton in the United States as "possible," "likely," "probable," or "known" human carcinogens (acephate, dichloropropene, diuron, fluometuron, pendimethalin, tribufos, and trifluralin). (Source: EPA)

      Cotton ranks second for most pesticide use of all crops. In the US, it takes about 1/3 of a pound of pesticides and
herbicides to grow enough conventional cotton for just one T-shirt.

      Pesticides used in non-organic farming of cotton can enter the human food chain.

      Because cotton is grown primarily for its fiber, it is regulated as a non-food crop. In fact, the majority of the cotton plant in the form of cottonseed, approximately 60% by weight, ends up in our food supply. These chemicals would seep into the grounds and absorb into the soil which would affect nearby crop plantations, get into household water supplies, or be drained into the river where the aquatic animals and plants will die.
Other Chemicals

      According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 84 million pounds of pesticides and 2.03 billion pounds of synthetic fertilizers were applied to 14.4 million acres of cotton in the US in 2000.

      Non-organic
cotton is heavily processed with stages and stages of procedures like stripping, waxing, bleaching, dying and softening. Non organic cotton is chemically dependant, hooked on pesticides and fertilizers to grow, and accounts for:

      10% of all agricultural chemicals used worldwide every year.

      25% of all pesticides used worldwide every year.
Water

      A non-organic cotton T-shirt uses enough water to flush your toilet 270 times.
Watch these videos

      One t-shirt made from conventional (non organic) cotton represents 2700 liters of water, and a third of a pound of chemicals, which often contaminate water supplies.

      Growing cotton accounts for 2.6% of the world's yearly water usage.

      One Cotton T-Shirt accounts for:

      9 years of drinking water for 1 person

     
400 gallons of water to grow the cotton required, not including processing, dyeing etc....

      & there's the energy too!
ORGANIC COTTON is the best option for both the health of consumers and the environment.
ORGANIC FARMING

      Uses no chemicals or pesticides.

      Organic farming uses only animal & vegetable.

      (Best crop would be hemp -takes less water & needs no pesticides)
GREEN HABITS

      A whopping 75 to 80 percent of your garment's lifecycle impact [the sum of environmental impacts caused by a product's existence] comes from washing and drying.

      Greening your laundry habits can enormously multiply the benefits of organic cotton T shirts:

     Line dry

      Wash when load is full & less often


      Wash with cold water

      Use non toxic biodegradable cleaners - they work and they don't damage Earth.
PROTECT EARTH

      Take a personal vow, as I have, to make a difference in any way you can. Share the information you find here and elsewhere that illuminates the threats to Earth.
Neil Young

---