What to wear today?

That's the question most of us are asking ourselves once or even several times a day within modern capitalistic societies. For some of us this is a practical common sense question and for others it's a life or dead question. A life threatening question when it comes to the survival of ones identity/image. When we consider this question of "what to wear" for a moment, we can see that it's a question based in luxury for habitants of a capitalistic system and within developing countries it's a question based in poverty and only about what is here to wear.

Wondering what to wear implies choice, but how real is that choice when you can only choose from one garment? How real is that choice when you can only choose from this seasons fashion in order to stay fashionable. Choice and choice without really choosing is directed by one thing, money. Money is what determines our choice of what to wear. Money dictates what it takes to be fashionable. Which strips fashion down to haves and have nots, the ones that have money can buy as much and as expensive fashion as they have money for, the ones that do not have money are designated on charity and donated fashion.

Donating your old clothes that you no longer want, sounds like a good and reasonable idea. It might even make people in developing countries happy that does not have any decent clothes. However, when we have a closer look, we can see that when we bring our old and worn clothes to developing countries we limit or stagnate the local economy. Lets say I bring second hand clothes to Argentina that were manufactured in Asia, I supported for a small portion the Asian workers by buying those clothes. Though with the same purchase I provide people in Argentina with clothes, that means that the local dressmaker or factory had nothing to do with the fact that the people in that area are dressed. The local industry can stop existing when people are provided for through other means. So the action of donating your old clothes might seem noble, but is in fact not considering all within the equality equation. Partially stimulating one industry and denying the existence of another is not in the best interest of all.

"Adriana, an eighteen year old young woman from Argentina, is waking up after a noisy night. All night through she heard the neighbor's kids wandering the corrugated roofs in an attempt to look for stuff to steal. Adriana is awake and ready for her next day, even though she knows that this day will be the same as yesterday and the coming days.
Her family is poor and they live in the slums. Her brothers are addicted to paco (a byproduct from the cocaine narco-kitchens) as wel as most of the young people in the slums.
Though yesterday Adriana experienced this dash of happiness, when an new sending of second handed clothing came in at her work. Adriana works at the "Soup Kitchen", which is an initiative of Margarita, a poor lady herself. The government and private donations make this initiative possible. They feed most of the people in the slums and distribute clothing and other basic needs that were privately donated. Adriana does not get paid, but she has free access to all the goods, which makes up for the work she does.
Yesterday she found this stunning dress with little flowers, on one of the clothing piles, as if it was a winning lottery ticket. So many times she had fantasized about herself walking and dancing in such a gorgeous dress. It was her way of day dreaming and escaping her harsh reality. Now her dream came true.
Carefully Adriana picks up the dress as if it's the most precious thing in her life. She's standing in front of what used to be a mirror and now only consist of a few glass shards. It's enough to see her reflection while she holds the dress in front of her. Her eyes are wet with tears, tears of happiness and a release of all the suppressed anger on her environment. With this dress she is someone and no longer a living dead from the slums.
She wonders if she shall wear it today, she doesn't want to get it dirty at work even though she wears an apron. Yes I'm wearing it, shouts Adriana out loud. Adriana decides, this will be the first day  that I'll be somebody, she'll wear the dress as a turning point in her life to fight her background and stand in life..."

Like Adriana we give power to the clothes we wear. We see ourselves immediately as stylish and having class when wearing classic expensive branded clothes. Without asking ourselves the question how is it possible that we change our identity when changing our clothes. Though we do, a shy girl might be quite out going when wearing sexy lingerie and she might actually feel herself sexually free. How can a pair of red knickers and a bra make you feel like a hooker? It's the feeling and the belief in our identities that makes us act as if it's real, but how real are you when you're changing identity all the time? Are you a doctor when you wear a white coat? Are you a pilot when you wear a pilot suit? Who we are is determined by who we really are and that's a stable state of being. You are who you are and not  that what you desire to be.

"Lian, a twenty five year old woman from China, wakes up amongst her 5 colleagues. They have to get ready for work, they work on the same plant they live on. The women share a room with 6, their bed and closet are their only private belongings for as long as they stay at the plant.
Lian's family is from the countryside and farmers over many generations. She decided to find her luck in the city and that's how she ended up working for a toy producing plant. Her idea was to sent money back home to up lift her family and share in the good life she had found. Reality turned out differently, she gets underpaid and has no life outside the plant. Lian and her colleagues work normal hours and mandatory overtime, she sends money back home to not disappoint her family or even worry them.
As all her colleagues Lian slips into her yellow uniform, they all prepared a well ironed one since today is the day that Wall Mart is arriving to do an audit. The girls are all given instructions about what to say and what not. Jiao, who normally speaks up is sent to her room for the day and will not get paid. Lian knows that speaking up will risk her job, even loosing a job that she hates is a terrible thing to even consider.
Every morning when Lian puts on the yellow uniform it reminds her of the life she's in. The life that she desired, far away from the country side, to make herself into a succes. This uniform to Lian is the very fabric of enslavement and the only way to survive. Taking it of will mean her death eventually and holding it on will take away all her freedom. Many times she's asked herself if this is what life is supposed to be. She never experienced abundance in her entire life that is if misery doesn't count.
At night she's glad to be able to take off her yellow uniform, only for a few hours when she sleeps, to dream about her freedom, a freedom she never has known her entire life..."

Due to the inequality in payment of all the parties that are involved in the making of a garment, when one party is paid less, they will put their effort into gaining more money and corruption is born. Plants or sweatshops have regular audits from their Western clients, but nowadays in China a plant can hire a consultant that makes sure that you pass the audit. The abusive conditions in which the workers do their jobs will not change through these audits. The fact that the client is not paying a realistic amount of money to the plant, makes the plant greedy for more money and they will cut on their workers. A cycle that cannot be broken as long as the inequality exists. A cycle that makes the workers hate their life's and trapp them into a system that will abuse them as long as they allow the abuse to happen. As long as we buy these products and feel good for the low price we pay.

Lian is revolting against the identity that her uniform is providing her. Every time she looks at the uniform or feels the uniform she's reminded of this deep ingrained hate for the work that she does. She knows that she's keeping this life of her in place, on the other hand she knows that when she quits the job she has to return home without a job and no money. We all have certain garments that remind us of the things we rather not be reminded of. The garment becomes a symbol for either a positive or a negative charged memory, which we perceive as real. You no longer wear long wool socks, because as a kid you had to wear them and you were scratching your legs open from the extensive itching. These socks became a symbol of others having power over you and not having control over the outflows. Therefore you didn't store it as a happy memory within your mind.

"Rosetta, a fifty year old woman from Italy wakes up and gets out of bed to put on her tracksuit. She loves to get up early while her husband is still asleep. She then slips into comfortable clothing that suits her while doing her chores in the house. She sweeps the floors and cleans the kitchen.
Around half past nine Rosetta is staring in front of her closet. A big closet where all clothes are neatly put away. Now she only has her summer clothing in the closet and her winter garments are put away. What will she wear today?
Rosetta hasn't bought a lot of new stuff over the last years. Sometimes she finds a sweater or skirt that fits her ideas of nice classic clothing that combines with the garments she already has. Her most favorable clothes are those of ten years ago. Slipping into those clothes makes her feel at home.
Finally she decides and picks the skirt that makes her look so young and the blouse that compliments her cleavage  and breast. She can still look like ten years ago, it gives her this special feeling and adrenaline is pumping through her body.
Rosetta goes out with her girlfriends to have breakfast, so she puts on a little make-up and her high heels. Of course her Gucci glasses and handbag our doing quite well with this outfit. Rosetta is now confident enough to go out and face the world.
While she's walking the streets to meet up with her friend at the cafe, she feels how the summer breeze is playing with her skirt. She's back in time, ten years ago. Back then she was happy and had still her youth and her relationship had still spirit. Things changed over the years and life isn't that exiting anymore. At least she has her memories and who can take those away from her..."

The period in our life's where we felt the most happy and the most ourselves are mostly the periods were our favorable clothes originate from. A person that still dresses him/herself in a hippie way will probably have had his/her happy moments in the seventies. It's hard for these persons to let go of the past, the past that provided them with an identity. An identity that they obsessive hold on to while not having to face their status quo in life today. By wearing old clothes one cannot stop time and one cannot live life in a constant memory of how things were. We give credits to clothes that within reality never can happen, yet we're not willing to see. The urge to not see their current life and instead be limited by the memories that made you happy once is a sad way of living your life. It is totally loosing contact with reality and a constant living in the mind.

"April, a 35 year old woman from the United States wakes up when her four year old jumps on the bed. Her little one is like an alarm clock and likes to relax in mommy and daddy's bed for a little while. April discusses with her daughter what she will wear today for kinder garten. Little Noa has a huge wardrobe and needs some help choosing the right outfit for the day. Noa wants to dress the same as yesterday, but April disagrees. She doesn't want her daughter to go out in the same outfit as yesterday, what would the other moms think?
While little Noa is dressed in a new outfit it's time for April to choose what to wear today. She walks through her closet while going through her hanging clothes with her fingers. A pair of trousers, a dress or a skirt, there is a lot to choose from, but she has been wearing it all for several times. There's nothing new and exited anymore. My God she totally doesn't know what to wear, it's a disaster. She decides to go with the Donna Karan outfit, what else should she do?
While having breakfast with her husband and daughter she informs her husband that it's time to do some shopping, since she has nothing to wear. Her daughter wants to join her, but April has already called some girl friends of her and is making it into an outing. Daddy will get you from kinder garten darling, April says. Her husband urges her to not forget to pay with the gold card.
April is meeting up with her girlfriends down town where the more exclusive shops are. April can take off from work any time. She's her own boss and whenever she feels like shopping all has to adjust to her decision. April has put her mind on some clothing of Donna Karan, since she sees that as the perfect clothing for her job and something she wants to be seen in. April is fitting into a brownish draped stretch-jersey dress when she comes out of the changing room and her friends are literally drooling. She's looking so gorgeous in this outfit and it only costs $2075. April is sure, she already impressed her friends and the shop assistant so this dress is hers, gold card here we come... 

April is a good example of not being in touch of reality while having all the money in the world. She's bored with her life and therefore bored with her wardrobe. She dresses to impress and seeks attention through her clothing. That's something we all do, dress to impress. Whenever we decide not to wear a certain combination like stripes with flowers, we do this only because of what others might say, this is indicating that you want to make people think good of you. Therefore you dress to impress.

To us clothes are magic and can make us behave a certain way, then we buy into the magic and perceive ourselves to be that way. Does a vagabond become a minister when he wears a suit? Does a poor person who suddenly dresses chic through donation clothing, become rich? If this was the case we could easily solve worlds poverty and famine if clothes had these special powers. But clothes are clothes, pieces of fabric hanging on our bodies. The only way our life changes is when we will ourselves to change. The only way the world around us changes is by changing ourselves and being able to change our environment. Clothes are clothes fashionable or outdated and can be processed into new cloths that make up new fabrics. Like all of us clothes will return back to dust of this earth to be reshaped and be of use in the best interest of all. Instead of donating we could recycle within a process that will not pollute our planet,but instead sustain, support and assists.

*the 4 women in this blog are based on factual fiction.

Source:

To Help Third World, Send Cash, not Stuff.

http://www.newser.com/story/130804/to-help-third-world-send-cash-not-stuff.html

The 10p cocaine byproduct turning Argentina's slum children into living dead.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/21/buenos-aires-slum-drugs-paco

www.equalmoney.org

I am what I wear: jeans

"Jeans your skin"  Meltin' Pot jeans brand.

Most of us have this one pair of jeans where we literally live in, a second skin which becomes a part of you. That's the way most of us approach their wardrobe. We either are attracted to clothes and see them as an extension of who we perceive ourselves to be within our world or we are repelled by the clothes we see, that we consider as: that 's not me. In other words one of the building blocks of our personality is clothing. We are what we wear since we wear that  which confirms who we think we are. 

The jeans that started of as a workers uniform became over the years a fashionable and expensive piece of our wardrobe that sometimes even made it into a collectors item. In the beginning jeans were promoted as pants that allowed you to get dirty and do the rough stuff, nowadays the words "dirty" and "rough" are connected to sexuality. Sex sells and advertising agencies use our hungry libido, to become that what we desire to be when wearing a certain brand of jeans.

Identifying yourself to your pair of jeans indicates that we, fashionable and non-fashionable people need something beyond ourselves to confirm who we are. It's not enough to be ourselves, we feel the need to pimp ourselves up and say to our environment: "hey look how though I am" or "see how cute and sexy I am". Our entire life we spend tons and tons of time to create this one perfect picture of ourselves, the picture we fear the most when it comes to not achieving this goal. We feel down and not entirely ourselves, according to our desired picture, and therefore we shop a bit and comfort ourselves with a new pair of jeans that can make up or assists recreating, restoring tis picture we have of ourselves. Along with achieving this picture we like to gather ourselves in groups that wear the same clothing styles as we do, to confirm the picture and to confirm us that everything is okay. We're okay, cool, hip and desirable when others share the same excitement for our clothing style. At last we've got an identity, we've got jeans.

This pair of jeans that gives us self-worth and a feeling of belonging, that when we put them on we feel as if we're home, is total self deception. Totally identifying ourselves with the picture we desire. The question is, do we understand what's behind these mind projections and desires we have if it comes to our jeans. Do we know what we're holding in our hands when we put on our jeans? Who made it? How was it made? What did I accept when I allowed myself to buy these pair of jeans? What does wearing jeans mean on a global scale?

The reality behind our beautiful and fashionable  jeans, consists of abuse. The abuse of living beings, the abuse of nature and the abuse of the system we live in. The abuse is shown in many different areas that work together to get your jeans in the stores: the cotton industry, the manufacturing industry and globalization.

Cotton industry

The cotton that makes up the fabric of your jeans is for a large part hand picked by children of Uzbekistan. Children who go to school and get recruited by the government to abandon school for picking cotton, this way these children enter forced child labour,  get hardly or not paid at all and it's almost impossible for their parents to get their children out of this industry during the harvest time. The sad thing is that the Uzbek government is leading this cotton picking campaign every autumn to meet up with their cotton quotas. Schools are shut down by state officials and even the teachers are forced into laboring in the cotton fields. Every child has to pick a daily amount of cotton. Those that fail to reach their target are reported, punished  and their grades in school will suffer from it. 

Uzbekistan is one example of child labor when it comes to cotton picking, it's also one of worlds largest cotton producing countries, but it's certainly not the only country that does so. Also india, Egypt, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Benin are guilty of cotton picking child labor.

By buying your pair of jeans you accept cotton to be hand picked and you allow forced child labour on children that should be in school instead, to learn their basics like reading, writing and maths. When you wear your nice and soft jeans, you do not feel the forced soft child hands struggling for survival. You do not want to think about such things while you're building your image of a cool and hip person that belongs to the right fashion group to feel accepted by life. The same life that you abuse by sustaining child labor.

Besides child labor the cotton industry is a large polluter on a global scale. The cotton producing countries can't afford to loose crops and are at the same time greedy enough to do anything to earn more money. In order to get the most produce from the fields they use a lot of pesticides. These pesticides are flooding into the water supplies and will pollute the water reserves on a global scale. We're living on one and the same globe and polluting water reserves in one country causes over time problems in other countries. Earth is a closed system where water is constantly re-cycled and all waters are connected to each other. Not only the waters gets poisoned, also the child laborers complain about physical symptoms they suffer from after long exposure to the pesticides. Therefore these pesticides are a threat for the health of all living beings with the planet included. It is common sense to see that we cannot keep on abusing without experiencing the consequences. Even when you wash your pair of jeans, the poisson of the pesticides are still in the fabric and will be washed out over time to pollute the water reserves in your town.

Buying a pair of jeans is accepting pollution and allowing it to become a global problem. Even when you do not care about these issues as pollution, because it simply doesn't hit home, your own health can also be at stake. For those that are hyper-allergic, the pesticides that are still remaining in your jeans, may irritate your skin and give it a rash. And not even the biggest egoist wants to pollute his own water supply, only ignorance and not facing the problems behind your jeans can sustain the abuse that's going on in the cotton industry.

As if child labor and pollution isn't enough, the cotton industry is using up so much water that the water supplies gets unevenly distributed. In Uzbekistan the cotton industry uses the water from the Aral Sea, this vital water resource for the Uzbeks is reduced with 15% of it's former volume. With the reducing water supplies a lot of fish species from the Aral Sea dyed, the wetlands dried out and it created a lot of environmental refugees.

Water is essential to us, to all life and to the planet, withdrawing water from one part to another is man made environmental abuse and will have major consequences for every one. It's not only within the producing part of cotton that a lot of water is wasted, also within the manufacturing of the jeans and all the years that you wear and wash your jeans. It's a never ending cycle of water wasting that we could approach in a different way while considering all interests at the same time.

Within the produce of organic cotton the use of water is reduced, the pests are controlled in a natural way and the land isn't under attack of intensive agriculture. There are many roads to walk when we consider greed for more profit as a factor that can be excluded. Without greed we do not need to over produce, we do not need to use aggressive pesticides that damage the soil and the health of the laborers and we do not need to use valuable water for only one purpose so that living beings do not have enough water to live on. When we simply act in the best interest of all in every way we do not need child hands to pick the cotton to meet up our greed quotum.

The manufacturing industry 

After  the harvesting of the cotton for your jeans, it will then be transported from the fields to the plant where workers are sorting, ginning and milling the cotton before weaving and cutting the actual fabric into jeans. This whole process is producing a lot of fine dust that affects the lungs of the workers, which can eventually develop into black lungs. It's not a type of work one should be in for many years, but the reality is that in for instance China and Mexico entire families work within this industry. Their working career starts as children, still underaged and due to the poverty they live in, these people are doomed to work this kind of jobs till they get sick and no longer can perform.  There are not many other job options that have less health risks within the poor regions they live in. This means that your pair of jeans provides poor families with a salary and at the same time it promotes disease within these workers that isn't necessary when security/health issues are taken into consideration.

Organic grown cotton might seem the solution and when we have a look at the growing of the cotton it is definitely a great alternative to traditional growing. However within the process of ginning, milling, weaving, cutting and sewing the organic cotton is not different from the traditional, it still produces fine dust. 

After the jeans is sewed they have to be bleached and dyed, the most common dye used for jeans is sulfur dye to create this deep intense color and many different shades. A lot of water is also used in the dye process and the contaminated waste water within developing countries is discharged directly into the rivers, due to lack of money for proper treatment on the waste water. However in India they found ways to not waste the dye and the colored waste water by re-using or re-cycling this water to add more dye to or to make lighter shade colors. In South China the rivers turned black and started smelling after many years of being a dump site for the jeans industry. In Xintang, China,  the people gathered and successfully demanded from the authorities that the rivers had to be clean again. Now the rivers are green again, but there is still toxic waste in the rivers that can't be removed. This shows that intoxicating the planet has high costs and is irreversible, which makes you wonder if the process of buying jeans is irreversible. What would be the least to get over, not having a pair of jeans produced through abuse or no longer having clean water in our rivers? As much as we want to believe that these practices take place in developing countries also developed countries have sulfur dye pollutions within their borders, contaminating their rivers that connect them with the rest of the world. The only difference is the scale on which it takes place.

Not only the cut and the color of your jeans make up their stylish image, you want this cool worn look that makes your jeans a bit more expensive and therefore more desirable. This used look is brought to us by the fashion industry as the hottest and most desirable type of jeans. Special shaded areas on the jeans will make your butt and legs look better than reality is showing you. To get a jeans into this worn state the most common  process used is manual sandblasting. Turkey was one of the biggest jeans sandblasting countries in the world, which was forbidden in 2009 by Turkish law. In Turkey the sandblasting workers suffered from black lungs due to the fine sand in the air and resulted in early deaths. So a great step forward when this manual sandblasting process was prohibited, however the demand for this process was still alive and this industry moved from Turkey to developing countries like China, Bangladesh and Egypt. On a global scale nothing really changed, except for the big jeans brands who didn't want to be seen as uncool and didn't want to be connected to this type of abuse. This abuse that is only a small part of the total abuse that involves the manufacturing of your jeans.

Manufacturing your jeans is a long story of abuse. Where child labor was involved within the picking of the cotton, child labor is again used within the manufacturing process. Children work  side by side with adults in sweat shops where they are treated inhumane and they are payed, even for their countries standards, a low income. 

How long will we sustain an industry so full of abuse only for our own gain? Is your image more valuable than the life's of people you do not know, when they breathe the same air as you do? How long will you accept the abuse of others to allow your to be fashionable. Providing yourself with an identity has a high cost if you count all the deaths that are connected to it. Providing yourself an identity in itself is making you pay. Believing the identity that you buy through advertisement is only a boost for your ego and is emphasizing your fears such as lack of self-worth and lack of self-direction. Following your inner voice, the ego, is making yourself into a dressed up plastic mannequin that can't move itself through self-will and is a living dead. So you accept yourself by definition to be a living dead and by doing so you allow others to become real death. Quite sick if you consider all aspects of you and your perfect pair of jeans.

Globalization 

Our world, globe, exist within polarization, globalization has therefore brought many opportunities to many people. However within polarity there is always the opposite movement. Globalization has showed us how we could function as one, we suddenly were connected to each other and experienced the world as a whole. At the same time globalization has shown us that we are not ready yet to take the full responsibility of being a world that is one and a complete whole. Our thinking mentality or strategy still evolves around our own direct experiences. We might know about an earthquake in Japan, but we are thanking God that we live far away from that and it is not concerning ourselves. Taking this principle back to the jeans industry, we see that we know about the abuse that is going on within the manufacturing process of jeans, but we see it as a story that is playing out far from home and therefore without consequences for ourselves. Globalization implies connecting ourselves with the entire outside world and this can only be possible when there really exist a connection between all of us. Polluting one river is in time effecting us, accepting child labor and risking the health of workers is indirectly going to effect us.

It is globalization that provides us with low prices and large discounts, it's globalization that's seducing us to buy into fast-fashion. Fast-fashion can be compared with fast-food and we all know what down side that brought into our life's. Due to low fashion prices we get more greedy and buy 3 pair of jeans instead of 1 pair. Therefore the value of the single pair of jeans goes down from a money point of view and also from a point of how we perceive this piece of garment. People find it easier to throw away a less expensive pair of jeans when they no longer like it or when it's not fashionable anymore. This creates more demand for more cheap clothes and therefore more slave work in the sweatshops and total jeans industry. Hip, hip, hurray for globalization that we accepted and allowed to fully grow into a mature system. A system that due to the fact that were not ready for it, is bringing more abuse than opportunities.

Of course we can donate our no longer desirable clothes to charity and make people in developing countries "happy" thanks to globalization. It is great to give your jeans a second life, but do we ever consider if our clothes are real wear-ables for the people in developing countries? Is a worker in Mexico, who sits squat on the ground all day to perform her job, served with your old pair of skinny jeans? It may even cause her health risks as vaginal infection or tingling leg syndrome. 

Wearing your pair of jeans and making it in a pair of shorts to let it revival till it dies of anility is probably the best way to not make a heavy footprint on society. Although this only works out if the fabric can be re-cycled without using heavy chemical processes.

Equal Money System 

It's obvious that the whole process of producing jeans from sewing the cotton till selling the jeans is a long road of abuse and based in the greed of all the players involved. Within this play no player is acting in the best interest of all, it's only a matter of fulfilling desires based in greed or based in fear of survival. A pair of jeans in it's current state can not be produced within an Equal Money System. How would we have to adjust this whole process within common sense and no longer having to worry about money, but only the best interest of all.

-Mass crops of cotton are no longer necessary since no one needs 8 pair of jeans if he/she can manage with 3 or 4 and wear them till they're really finished.

-Using extensive amounts of water and withdrawing it from the water consumption is not necessary when the industry is smaller and organic methods are investigated.

-Time investment within the use of pesticides and organic pest control methods.

-Specialness and exclusiveness around hand picked cotton is an idea, common sense is to pick the cotton in a way that there is no cotton damaged or wasted and no machinery is used that consumes lots of crude oil products.

-The transport of the cotton to the plants does not require to go from one end to the other end of the world to go through the different steps of manufacturing, only because of money issues as making more profit.

- Processing cotton into fabric is producing a lot of dust, when money and profit are no players anymore, the plants can be made into safe working places.

-Investigating time into finding the type of dye to color the jeans that isn't toxic and isn't producing a lot of waste, it could be made into re-cyclable waste.

-Make a jeans into a wear-able item and not into a fashionable ego booster.

-Every body within the process of manufacturing jeans will earn the same amount per hour and the price of a pair of jeans needs to be stable and not subject to supply and demand or to other market operations. Clothing is for everybody a basic need and therefore it needs to be accessible.

Within an Equal Money System you wear a pair of jeans that is in the best interest of all. Buying an EMS jeans is accepting full responsibility for all living beings and allowing abus to not exist.

Source:

Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry

http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1289%2Fehp.115-a449

Sandblasting jeans worker exposed to big risks

http://www.sask.fi/english/magazine/sandblasting-jeans-worker-expose/

Cotton in Uzbekistan

http://www.ejfoundation.org/page142.html

Cotton Campaign

http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor/cotton-campaign

Denim Pollution - SolutionsTo Sulfur Dyeing Wastes

http://www.denimsandjeans.com/denim/manufacturing-process/denim-pollution-solutions-to-sulphur-dyeing-wastes/

Rivers turn green as world's jeans capital fights pollution

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/greenchina/2011-03/08/content_12136883.htm

www.equalmoney.org