Cotton T-Shirts

1. Group 4 Cotton T-Shirts

2. Raw Materials • T-shirts are made from 100% cotton grown and harvested on farms, which are often in United States, China, India, and developing nations • Cotton farms take up about approximately 3% of the world’s land • 25% of the world’s insecticides are used on cotton, more than any crop • Many of these insecticides are known carcinogens

3. Marketing Slide • Different designs are used on t-shirts to attract different customers • T-shirts are not advertised too heavily, as people understand they need them • Companies are still trying to advertise to nudist colonies • Stores compete to sell T-shirts for the lowest price

4. Manufacturing • Making T-shirts is relatively simple and mainly a process that is automated • Machines are specifically designed to cut, assemble, and stitch the materials efficiently • The shirt making process typically follows these steps: • Styling-cutting-assembling the front and back-assembling the sleeves-stitching the hem-stitching the shoulder seams-attaching the neckband-finishing the neckline-setting labels-adding optional features-finishing the operations

5. Manufacturing Problems • Synthetic dyes used in the making of T-shirts are poisonous when swallowed in large amounts • These can contaminate ground water • Less reliable natural dyes are used less frequently than synthetic ones • The making of T-shirts often uses cheap labor, which involves exploiting the workers • Like most factories, T-shirt factories create harmful airborne pollution

6. Sales, Distribution, and Packaging • Once the cotton is harvested, it is sent to areas where cheap labor is present, such as Asia • After being manufactured, the T-shirt must be shipped to the distributer, which are often in different countries than where it was assembled • They are shipped in basic containers, like cardboard boxes

7. Consumer Use • Cotton shirts will often shrink when washed • T-shirts do not have a very long lifespan • The shirts are not very durable • The washing and drying of shirts accounts for nearly 60% of the energy used throughout the T-shirts lifetime • The water used can be contaminated by the synthetic dyes and the cleaning products

8. Final Dispostion • Shirts can be recycled through the Salvation Army or similar entities • T-shirts with false designs, such as one celebrating the team that lost the Super Bowl, are often given to people in Africa for their use • They are often disposed of in landfill

9. Recycling • Places, like Plato’s Closet, rebuy used T-shirts and recycles the materials to make new shirts • Shirts can be recycled through the Salvation Army or similar entities • T-shirts with false designs, such as one celebrating the team that lost the Super Bowl, are often given to people in Africa for their use • If they are not recycled, they are usually put in a landfill

10. Works Cited • http://xlweb.com/heritage/asian/jacob.htm • http://www.enotes.com/t-shirt-reference/t-shirt • http://www.hellogreentomorrow.com/blog/2010/03/the-lifecycle-of-t-shirt/ • http://jordanhall.co.uk/tag/t-shirts/