While listening to NPR on my way back to Baltimore yesterday I listened to a very interesting story about the coming Water Crisis. Essentially the guest speaker, Steven Solomon, was discussing how global water usage is increasing at a leve that cannot be sustained. In fact, some of the hardest hit regions who will be facing water shortages soon are areas in which terrorism has taken, or is beginning to take hold. The global consumption of our limited water resources may even spark the next major conflict. You can read the article on NPR here and listen to the broadcast for more information, “Will the Next War be Fought Over Water?“.

Immediately after hearing this story I was reminded of an article I read while back on Treehugger, where it lists the amount of water needed to produce a single new tshirt or pair of jeans. Fortunately I found that article here, “How Many Gallons of Water Does It Take to Make…”

Here are the facts straight from the article:

Pair of Jeans
It takes around 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to produce just one pair of regular ol’ blue jeans. [2]

Cotton T-Shirt
Not as bad as jeans, it still takes a whopping 400 gallons of water to grow the cotton required for an ordinary cotton shirt.

Now, if you think that just because you make your own clothes by knitting, crocheting, or buying fabric in the store that you are helping to reduce your water consumption, just look at what the article says about your raw materials:

One Pound of . . .
Wool: 101 gallons of water
Cotton: 101 gallons

In short, one great way to avoid consuming more than your fair share of water and starting on the slippery slope that will lead to famine, death, terrorism, and finally war is to stop buying new clothes! There are thousands of vintage stores, second hand and thrift shops available where you can purchase used, or as I like to call them, previously loved clothing. There are so many great resources online that can show you how to sew, refashion, and remake clothes, If you prefer to knit, but can’t find a sweater that you really like, buy a used one and recycle the yarn. If you can’t bear to take up sewing or knitting, but still want to do your part, but don’t want to dig through thrift stores, then buy online. Online sellers like Etsy have tons of shops selling recycled couture, so you can still look good and do your part to slow the damage to our Earth. I’ll include more links below to help you do additional research on the size of the issue at hand as well as places to purchase used clothes and links to groups of folks who have pledged not to buy any new clothes to help reduce their footprint on the Earth.

The Water Crisis:

The Coming Crisis: Water, Not Oil

Failing Wheat Crop Causes Afghan Food Crisis

Obscured By War, Water Crisis Looms In Yemen

We Use How Much Water? Scary Water Fooprints, Country by Country

Groups Embracing the Stop Shopping or Nused Clothing Movement to Recycle, Upcycle or Refashion Clothing:

Wardrobe Refashion

The Great American Apparel Diet

Great Places to Shop for Refashioned, Recycled, Vintage Clothing:

Etsy

ArtFire

Ebay

Goodwill

The Salvation Army

Rusty Zipper

Mod Cloth

Blu Vintage

So, maybe you can make one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2010 to stop buying new clothes? So go on, get shopping, just make sure it’s been previously loved. Maybe you can even check off two resolutions, by using all of the money you will save not buying new clothes to pay off debt…not a sermon, just a thought