The production cycle is also highly toxic for the environment. The production cycle contributes to pollution by introducing chemicals and waste into the environment. It also uses large amounts of resources like water and energy.
Textile manufacturing is problematic due to the large amount of water consumed in processing and dyeing cotton. Textile manufactures not only consume a lot of water in order to grow cotton, the wastewater discharged are frequently contaminated with large amounts of toxins. These include bleaches, acids, alkalis, dyes, resins, inks, and fluorocarbons. In fact, rivers around the world have been dyed odd colours thanks to the wastewater discharged.
Furthermore, production and manufacturing consumes large amount of energy. Each year, about 90 metric tonnes of fabric are produced. This corresponds to about 1.5 trillion kWh of electricity consumed.