alt.hn

8/20/2026 at 7:33:52 PM

A cotton T-shirt takes roughly 2,700 litres of water to produce

 https://spacedaily.com/sd-a-cotton-t-shirt-takes-roughly-2-700-litres-of-water-to-produce-about-what-one-person-drinks-in-two-and-a-half-years-and-most-of-that-water-is-pulled-from-irrigation-stressed-river-basins-in-centra/

by GordonS

8/20/2026 at 7:54:20 PM

The “criticism” of the cotton sector for its, er, “excessive” water consumption has time and again been debunked as being without basis and without evidence. Worse, this argument has been flagrantly perpetuated by AI companies.

https://texfash.com/special/cotton-s-water-myth-busted-new-g...

Kranthi’s findings, published in the latest edition of the ICAC Recorder, argue that public perception of cotton's water use has been shaped by flawed metrics that fail to distinguish between water sources. Natural rainfall, which accounts for 75% of cotton's total water footprint, is an uncontrollable environmental factor that crops naturally utilise as part of their growth cycle.

by sjunginma

8/20/2026 at 7:50:40 PM

The founder of Soylent came to the conclusion that having polyester shirts bulk-purchased directly from China, and donating them instead of washing them, was the ecologically sensible thing to do:

Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than it would to wash them, and I donate my used garments.

https://web.archive.org/web/20161104001753/http://robrhineha...

Discussion at the time (2011): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9996038

This also may be satire.

by jerlam

8/20/2026 at 8:05:03 PM

Typical shit

Cotton: About ~1500 litres if you exclude rain.

Polyester~30 litres (inclusive entire extraction chain).

Another way to put it:

Cotton: 750 almonds

Polyester: 15 almonds

5-250 California almonds

by maxglute

8/20/2026 at 8:12:34 PM

I'd rather have a good cotton shirt than a bag of almonds.

by ThrowawayTestr

8/20/2026 at 8:23:15 PM

I'm not knocking on consumer choice. I'd rather have 5 high performance synesthetic petchem shirt summoned from fossil than a nice cotton shirt that emits more and sheds more microplastic. More to point out how stupid agriculture water use can be. Also golf courses.

by maxglute

8/20/2026 at 9:37:25 PM

What microplastic is in pure cotton? My best shirts lasted two decades. 100% cotton. Not mixed fabric or even elastan.

How much water gets contaminated forever with microplastic due to the BS mixed fabric hype?

by GuestFAUniverse

8/20/2026 at 10:49:33 PM

so now plastic is the greener choice? what a time to be alive

by dahrkael

8/21/2026 at 3:30:17 AM

I think tstill more emissions per shirt, more microplastics, but in terms of water use, more green.

by maxglute

8/20/2026 at 7:38:35 PM

And people complain about AI water usage

by memjay