• Can you make a sea disappear? SEP 23, 2010

    • Well, doesn’t that depend on how big the sea is? Nope, not really. The Aral Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is virtually gone. It was once the 4th largest sea in the world.

      Can you think of a reason why the Aral Sea would disappear? If you haven’t heard the story, the answer will probably surprise you. It certainly surprised us! (Video after the break)

      Take a look

      The disappearance of the Aral Sea has ruined the local fishing economy in the the area and destroyed the lives of locals.

      The United Nations has called it one of the planet’s most shocking environmental disasters. Just take a look at this…

      What happened?

      The question can be answered in one word: cotton!

      The sea disappeared mainly because of the enormous water demand from cotton production in the area. To produce 1 cotton T-shirt requires about 2,700 liters of water to grow and process the cotton.

      To make things worse, the area is plaqued by another side effect of cotton production: the heavy use of pesticides. In fact, more chemical pesticides are used for cotton than for any other crop.

      Pesticides in cotton production

      In the cotton fields around the Aral Sea, 85% of the population suffer from poor health because of cotton pesticides.

      When interviewed in 2006, a rural Uzbek put it like this: “When I was little, people used to tell me about a strange disease called ‘chicken eye’ which attacks people while they work in the cotton fields. They said when you catch it, everything in front of your eyes becomes white until eventually you temporarily lose all vision (…) Years later someone explained that these symptoms were the effects of the pesticides applied to cotton”

      The clothes we wear

      Do you know where the cotton in your T-shirt came from, or your shirt, or your socks, or … ? (We have no idea where ours came from). It might be from Uzbekistan’s Aral Sea cotton fields (Uzbekistan is one of the world’s largest exporters of cotton).

      But we DO know that organic cotton, produced with respect for local water resources, and without pesticides, exists.

      See more on the benefits of organic cotton in our clothing section

      If you are more interested in the Aral Sea, watch this video:

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