Consider some of these water facts from the Examiner:

• According to the U.S. government, 36 U.S. states already face water shortages or will be within the next few years.
• According to U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. interior west is driest that it has been in 500 years
• The Ogallala Aquifer, a massive underground lake stretching from South Dakota to Texas, is rapidly drying up.  The aquifer is believed to be the largest body of fresh water in the world, and right now, it is being drained at a rate of approximately 800 gallons per minute.
• An estimated 75 percent of surface water in India is now contaminated by human and agricultural waste.
• Every 8 seconds, somewhere in the world, a child dies from drinking dirty water.
• Worldwide demand for fresh water tripled during the last century, and is now doubling every 21 years.

Sadly, the Examiner’s water facts list isn’t complete. We’d like to add a few more water facts to the list:

• The Aral Sea, the world’s fourth largest lake, has nearly dried up due to cotton farming in the desert.
• In Texas this summer, the “exceptional” drought left cotton farmers with no choice but to let non-irrigated crops fail. You can see the drastic effects of the drought in the photo above by Jeff Attaway.
• In China, over 70 percent of the fresh water is polluted.

In last year’s Quadrennial Defense Review, the U.S. military sited water scarcity as a major concern. So, it’s not just environmentalists that are concerned about the declining access to fresh water. But, war is not inevitable, much of the problem is caused by corporate and governmental disregard for water as a precious resource. And we can influence companies and administrations to be better stewards of the world’s fresh water supplies.

Every day we read about drought, industrial pollution, and overpopulation taking a toll on the less than one percent of the fresh water available for human use on the planet. So, this list could be much longer. Which water facts would you add to this list? Feel free to post them in the comments below.

photo credit: Jeff Attaway Creative Commons

Betabrand has been making men’s clothing for over a year (really more than six, under the name Cordarounds). The company is known for their wit, being online only, and producing their pants, jackets, hoodies, and bags in limited quantities for reasonable prices (their most popular pants sell for $90).

In a New York Times article, founder Chris Lindland explained that he always believed that limiting the supply and offering new items weekly would be key to their success (as well as baking clever humor into the brand and being an online retailer).

This credo has created not only a sustainable clothing line, but a sustainable business model too. Betabrand doesn’t need to have closeout sales to get rid of old inventory, because they simply don’t make more than they know they’ll sell. According to a Fast Company piece on the company, Betabrand is on track to do more than $2 million in sales this year.

While Lindland may not have been thinking about sustainability as he began building his company, he has have achieved it. Not to mention, their website is just plain fun and they’re an excellent example of how to create a successful online clothing store.

photo credit: Betabrands

Here are a few of the latest creations you can find in your grocery store to brighten up your winter kitchen.

While on the O-Cel-O site, we also picked up a few great tips for eco-friendly cleaning. Did you know that you can use salt, lemon juice, and an O-Cel-O spong to wash your sink? When you’re done scrubbing, drop the lemon rind into the food disposal with hot running water for a clean, fresh scent.

Our water-less technology and designs can be applied to just about anything. Stay tuned to see where AirDye will turn up next.

The SS 2012 collection featured 26 pieces, of which 21 used AirDye. Over the years, Costello Tagliapietra have come to understand AirDye’s unique capabilities and design their pieces with this in mind. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the underside of the dresses is a different color. As Costello explained to Ecouterre before the show, “We really play with the back colors as much as the front colors. That really pops the color a lot.”

The theme of the show is “garden party” and romance. The floral prints in the collection are inspired by Georgia O’Keefe and, as always, the draping, folding, and finish work of each dress make them a work of art in and of themselves. The florals were created digitally by juxtaposing images of blossoms in Asian rainforests.

Here’s what just some of the fashion press and bloggers thought of the collection…

Women’s Wear Daily

For their latest collection of wear-everywhere dresses, not to mention the occasional jumpsuit and separates, Jeffrey Costello and Robert Tagliapietra hit upon another group of bankable pieces. Drawing inspiration from a favorite Georgia O’Keeffe quote about the beauty of flowers, the duo created a custom print by digitally layering photos of gardens atop each other, resulting in a look that was more batik than flower.

Style.com

The pair is on the side of evolution over revolution, and they found themselves revisiting core values like romanticism and femininity. Both themes were present in the classic dresses here—some in jersey, others in satin—whether expertly bow-tied and bloused or sewn into twisty gathers at the waist….This season’s crop of prints were also fresh, including a couple of smudgy, painterly florals that looked like peeling walls, and another with stenciled leaves, particularly lovely on a bell-sleeved forties-inspired number. Costello Tagliapietra has a deceptively simple formula that adds up to pretty, not precious.

Avenue Insider

Costello Tagliapietra applauds the shape of women- tied, twisted and belted waists with drapes and fabric that frothed with every movement. Continuing their ‘green’ partnership with AirDye, Jeffery Costello and Robert Tagliapietra chose a fabric with a ‘garden party’ theme; clashes of copper and cobalt and red and grey. The CT team played with intricate techniques of cut with the shoulders and necklines – adding natural movement to the satin and jersey garments.

New York Post

Jeffrey Costello and Robert Tagliapietra did what they do best: variations on the wrap dress (and occasional gown), from sexy to sophisticated to office-appropriate. Many of them were tied tightly at the waist in a bow, another Costello trademark, creating an ultra-feminine silhouette. Some were subtly sliced down the back, while some had deep V-necks or draped fronts. There was even a forest-green wrap with wrist-length sleeves, Kate Middleton-style.

Fashionista.com

“We took photos of flowers, put them on the computer and layered and layered them,” Costello said. “That’s how the prints came out and informed the collection.” As for the palate–forest green, grey-blue, dusty rose-colored prints–Tagliapietra told us “the colors don’t wear you, they emphasize your personality.” Simon Doonan agrees. “I thought the colors were enormously sophisticated,” he said. “They have an unusual juxtaposition of color.”

Racked.com

The New York Times has been talking all about how we’re going to be seeing a lot of sleeves this season thanks to Kate Middleton, but the bearded duo behind Costello Tagliapietra have been doing that for a while now, so get with the times, Times. In short, the silks were beautiful, the prints complimentary, and the backs of the dresses open in some way (a slit) shape (a low scoop) or form (totally bare). Plus, it’s pretty hard to top all that intricate drapery.

And overheard on Twitter…

@SecondCityStyle Seashell pockets abound at @CostelloTaglia. The print mixing is ideal and very chic #nyfw

@HarpersBazaarus Classic Costello: pretty draping and beautiful colors! #NYFWSC

@castorpolluxnyc I could look at the @CostelloTaglia Spring collection all day long and never tire of it. What immense beauty in clothing.

More on our Twitter Favorites feed.

We’re not talking about a woman who’s got an organic cotton field out back. Not at all! After talking to a biologist and began to combine tea, sugar, a few microbes and let them stew for a bit. Lee says in her TED Talk, “I’m essentially using a kombucha recipe, which is a symbiotic mix of bacteria, yeasts and other micro-organisms, which spin cellulose in a fermentation process. Over time, these tiny threads form in the liquid into layers and produce a mat on the surface.”

Without light, or care even—just a consistent warm temperature—you can have a malleable substance that’s as thin as a paper or as heavy as a vegetable leather. When Lee removes it from the bath and washes it off and sets it out to dry. She can place it around a three-dimensional form, like a shoe. As the material dries, it will form together and seam itself.

From what we can tell, the natural state is translucent and a bit like pale skin. But Lee has found ways to use organic dyes and indigo to get some striking designs.

The biggest drawback: the material melts if it gets wet. But this is still new, and as Lee puts it:

What excites me about using microbes is their efficiency. So we only grow what we need. There’s no waste. And in fact, we could make it from a waste stream — so for example, waste sugar stream from a food processing plant. Finally, at the end of use, we could biodegrade it naturally along with your vegetable peelings. What I’m not suggesting is that microbial cellulose is going to be a replacement for cotton, leather or other textile materials. But I do think it could be quite a smart and sustainable addition to our increasingly precious natural resources.

What do you think of the future of bacterial cellulose for clothing?

This week, Greenpeace’s “Dirty Laundry 2: Hung Out to Dry Unraveling the toxic trail from pipes to products” report shows us that, without a doubt, the textile industry is addicted to toxic chemicals and it doesn’t matter where the clothes are made.

If you’ll recall the response to the initial report from brands such as Nike, Adidas, H&M and others was to insist that their clothing was not dyed at the two textile dye plants in the report which were spewing heavy metals, hormone disrupters and other toxins into China’s rivers.

toxic chemicals are everywhere

As we pointed out in our earlier post, it really didn’t matter if the clothes were made at the two dye houses, the problems would likely be the same. And that’s what this new report is showing. Greenpeace purchased 78 articles of clothing and fabric shoes from authorized retailers for 15 brands from stores around the world. Clothing from Adidas, Calvin Klein, Converse, Gap, H&M, Lacoste, Nike, Puma, Ralph Lauren, and others were collected.

From these samples, an independent lab tested the items to see if they contained any nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs). NPEs are used during the textile dyeing process. But, once the chemical’s job is done it’s released into the local waterways where it breaks down into toxic nonylphenol (NP). And this is the chemical to be concerned about.

Nonylphenol is a persistent chemical that is hazardous even at very low levels. NP is toxic and able to act as a hormone disruptor. It accumulates in the tissues of fish and other organisms, and will magnify (be found at ever increasing levels) through the food chain. NP has also recently been detected in human tissue. Both NPE and NP are banned in the European Union (but not regulated when it comes to clothing imports.)

Of the 78 items, 52 were found to contain some level of NPEs and some contained very high amounts. What happens when you bring these home is that even with the small levels of NPEs in any one garment, with everyone washing their clothes, the accumulated amounts end up in local water ways, far away from where the shirt, sweats, or sneakers were made.

As the Greenpeace report puts it:

The global nature of clothing production and trade also means that articles containing residual levels of NPEs are being imported into countries, such as members of the EU, where the use of these chemicals in clothing manufacture has effectively been banned.

Of course, this is even a bigger problem for those countries where a lot of clothing dyeing and manufacturing is taking place. As we mentioned, this isn’t just a problem in China. According to the report’s findings, dye houses from Bangladesh to Egypt to the Philippines to Turkey are using NPEs.

There are non-toxic alternatives to NPEs. Alcohol Ethoxylates is a good example, but it costs 25 to 40 percent more.

who will lead the way to clean water?

Since the first Dirty Laundry report this summer only two of the brands have publicly committed to eliminate toxic chemicals from their supply chain: Puma and Nike.

But that’s not enough, especially for the companies whose brand image is one of sustainability, honoring the environment, and claiming to have policies in place to address hazardous chemicals. Too often, the companies simply say they have no control deep into the supply chain or that the manufacturers are abiding by local laws—which we know are not enough.

Greenpeace is calling on all these companies to:

• Eliminate all releases of hazardous chemicals from their supply chains and their products by establishing clear company and supplier policies that commit their entire supply chain to shift from the use of hazardous to safer chemicals, accompanied by a plan of action containing clear and realistic timelines
• Base policies on a precautionary approach to chemicals management, and account for the whole product lifecycle and releases from all pathways.
• Create solutions by working together with suppliers to bring about systematic change in the way brands and businesses create their products. Not simply by walking away from a few of the most egregious supplies or by eliminating one or two toxic chemicals.

If you agree and want to see fewer toxic chemicals in your clothes and water, please spread the word and post this to Facebook, tweet it, or print it out (on recycled paper of course) and pass it around the office.

photo credits: © Clement Tang / Greenpeace and © Rachel Corner / Greenpeace

The public service campaign Wasting Water Is Weird (created by the sustainably-focused advertising agency Shelton Group and sponsored by Bosch, Kohler, Lowes, and P&G) is hoping to make you feel just a little creepy when you’re letting the water run.

At the center of Wasting Water Is Weird are three videos featuring “Rip the Drip.” He shows up just when someone is wasting water. See for yourself just how weird it gets:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIMdUbiCMhQ

Not sure about you, but we’re all going to be extra vigilant and make sure we’re not wasting any water. We don’t want to be alone with Rip! See the other videos on YouTube.

And after you’ve had a good laugh, as Wasting Water Is Weird reminds us…

Water is one of our most precious resources. We use it every single day, but we don’t have to waste it. That’s just weird. So check out the rest of this site to find all kinds of simple things you can do to help conserve water. Learn more at EPA’s Water Sense website.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG6IsUiw0Gc

Each of the companies, including Nike, Adidas, The Gap, and H&M (who all have published ambitious sustainability goals) denied that their goods were dyed at either the Youngor Textile Complex in Ningbo on the Yangtze River Delta or the Well Dyeing Factory in the Pearl River Delta near Hong Kong. The brands did confirm, however, that they use one or the other facility, but only as a “cut and sew” supplier.

Each company has tried to distance themselves from the clearly documented water-polluting textile companies. As you can see here in two excerpts from the letters…

Nike’s Vice President of Sustainable Business and Innovation Hannah Jones wrote:

NIKE, Inc. currently sources from two factories in the Youngor Group Co, Ningbo Youngor Knitting and Underwear and Ningbo Youngor Sportswear in Zhejiang Province.

These factories are cut and sew facilities. They do not have manufacturing processes that include use of the chemicals called out in your letter. In addition, neither factory sources materials from the Youngor Dye House. Both factories feed only sanitary wastewater into the Water Treatment Facility.

From H&M’s Head of CSR, Helena Helmersson (emphasis H&M) said:

H&M is currently sourcing small quantities of garments from a pure garment factory called Ningbo Youngor Yingchen Uniform, with no wet processes. It belongs to Youngor Group Co Ltd and is located within the premises of Youngor International Garment City….

H&M is not in any way using the wet processes within the premises of Youngor International Garment City and is therefore not contributing to discharging toxic chemicals in the Fenghua River.

But here’s, the problem: These brands have their clothing dyed somewhere in China and those factories are using similar “wet dye” and finishing processes that spew heavy metals and other hazardous chemicals into the waterways. Even with water treatment, some heavy metals cannot be removed, and the dyehouse is still using vast quantities of water to dye, finish, and clean the fabric.

Wet processes are common because there simply aren’t the facilities in China to dye fabric without the use of water (we know, because we’re working on building that capacity now, and no production is yet online there).

Claiming their commitment to sustainability, the international brands (Nike, H&M, Gap, and Adidas) site their efforts working with various voluntary, industry groups, such as the Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) Apparel Mills & Sundries Working Group to improve sustainability, factory auditing and continuous improvement. The BSR, however, is not a technical organization staffed with scientists nor do they have powers like the EPA here in America to fine and put offenders in jail.

In the responses to Greenpeace’s report, the companies also declare their commitment to improvement. For example, from Nike’s letter:

Nike and Greenpeace have a common goal of eliminating discharges of hazardous chemicals in our manufacturing process. Over the years, we have almost entirely eliminated hazardous chemicals in the materials we use to make our products… Managing water in our manufacturing process remains one of the critical keys to successfully eliminating hazardous chemicals.

So, we ask you, as the ultimate influencer–the end consumer–to pressure Nike, Adidas and the other brands to not just write carefully crafted letters and corporate sustainability goals, but to take direct and quick action to stop polluting the world’s waterways with their wet process textile dyeing.

Sign Greenpeace’s Detox Now! petition, post this to Facebook or in a tweet. Be sure you let industry leaders know they need to do more to conserve precious fresh water and give us a toxic-free future.

The report is based on a year-long investigation of two major Chinese suppliers, the Youngor Textile Complex in Ningbo on the Yangtze River Delta and the Well Dyeing Factory in the Pearl River Delta near Hong Kong. Greenpeace campaigners, often in protective suits (see photo below by ©Qiu Bo / Greenpeace), collected water samples from outside the factories that were carefully analyzed. The results clearly show that toxins are spilling into China’s rivers on a daily basis.

scope of the water pollution

There are tens of thousands of mills in China and textiles account for 7.6 percent of the country’s trade. So, while the report looks only at two textile factories, they believe the problem is widespread, based on other investigations conducted by Greenpeace as well as the fact that other independent organizations have found 70 percent of China’s fresh water sources are polluted and more than 50 percent of the surface fresh water isn’t fit for drinking.

According to Greenpeace’s report, the discharge from these factories includes heavy metals and “hazardous and persistent chemicals with hormone-disrupting properties were found being discharged from these facilities. Alkylphenols (including nonylphenol) were found in wastewater samples from both factories, and perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) were present in the wastewater from the Youngor Textile Complex.”

Persistent chemicals are those that do not breakdown as they flow downstream. In fact, they build up in have been found in birds, fish, polar bears (yes, the ocean’s currents take the toxic effluents that far!), and human breast milk.

One might wonder if these toxic chemicals are all that’s available to dye fabric. There are less toxic, even less costly alternatives available.

international brands have a responsibility

Greenpeace also found that major international brands, such as Nike, H&M, Adidas, Gap, Abercrombie and Fitch, are customers of Youngor and Well Dyeing Factory. However, when asked to respond to the report, all of the brands insisted that none of their fabrics were dyed at these factories, but only used the “cut and sew” services.

Some of the brands associated with these supplies are well known for their sustainability records, especially Nike, Gap and H&M. While their garments may not be dyed in either of these two factories, it’s likely that the supplier they do use is not performing much better.

Greenpeace feels these brands have a duty to address water pollution generated along the supply chain. As the report says:

Although some of these brands have Corporate Responsibility programs which partly address the environmental impact of their supply chain, none of the brands featured in this report have an effective strategy in place to deal with the problem of water pollution caused by industrial discharges containing hazardous substances.

Interestingly, often the international brands only require suppliers to adhere to local regulations, which are well below that of the U.S. and Europe.

consumers’ role in textile water pollution

It’s not just up to these big brands to insist upon higher standards all along the supply chain, consumers need to make it clear that ending water pollution is important to them too.

We can do this by contacting our favorite athletic and fashion companies and letting them know we expect for them not just to have high standards for water quality in the U.S. and in Europe, but to take those standards to every country where their garments are manufactured.

educate yourself and be a part of the solution

The work Greenpeace has done in this investigation needs to be widely distributed. And, frankly, the textile industry isn’t alone in its water-polluting ways. Technology companies are another significant source of environmental toxins, especially in China. Learning more about the scope of the problem, who the worst offenders are, and which products do the most harm is a great place to start.

Then, take some of that time at the keyboard and ask these brands what they’re doing to set out tough environmental standards and enforce them all along their supply chain. Because, together we can reverse the flow of water pollution and protect our environment and our future.

Visit Greenpeace’s Dirty Laundry investigation website and download the full report, see the companies’ responses, and learn the details for yourself. Then sign the Detox Now! petition and encourage Nike and Adidas to use sustainable dyeing technologies.

photo credit: © Qiu Bo / Greenpeace

Here in the U.S., most of us just turn on the tap and out flows lots of clean, fresh (and sometimes free) water. But it may not stay that way for long. If you’re a regular reader, you’re aware of the ongoing and devastating droughts in California, Texas and elsewhere in the country. On top of erratic weather, we’re also dumping a myriad of chemicals into our water. This has already been proven to cause mutations in animals, and is likely to effect people too.

In Alex Prud’homme new book The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century, he delves into the likelihood of armed conflict, privatization of water supplies, and how water is an essential element of everything–not just for drinking, bathing, and sanitation. In an interview in Rolling Stone, Julian Brookes asks about how, 30 years after the Clean Water Act, U.S. water is actually dirtier than it was. Alex says:

The environmental laws that were instituted in the ’70s–the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the founding of the EPA–were largely the result of water issues, and we tend to say, “Okay, we’ve dealt with that, let’s move on.” But the EPA has been under-funded and weakened even as the stresses on the system have grown and new kinds of pollutants have come on to the marketplace.

In fact, right now, the Republican-controlled House is working on passing a bill that would continue to cut EPA funding and weaken water regulations.

Read the rest of the interview at RollingStone.com.