Moxie Industries

ECO 101

Green Wardrobe: By the Numbers

* 68 lbs: Amount of clothes and textiles the average American throws out each year.
      
* 10 percent: Percentage of all agricultural chemicals in the US that are used to grow cotton; 25 percent of insecticides are used for this purpose as well.

* 1/3 lb: Amount of chemicals (pesticides and fertilizers) used to grow enough cotton for just ONE T-shirt.

* 47 percent: Percentage of chemicals used to grow cotton that are considered possible, likely, probable, or known human carcinogens (these are acephate, dichloropropene, diuron, fluometuron, pendimethalin, tribufos, and trifluralin) according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

* 67 million: Annual bird deaths attributed to pesticides; pesticides are also suspected to be responsible the severe drop in honeybees and the increase in frogs with extra legs and eyes.

* 2.5 billion lbs: Amount of post-consumer textile waste removed from the waste stream each year, by the US textile recycling industry (which actually re-purposes rather than recycles).