by Bena Burda and Linda Tyler Brown
Each Of Us Can Make a Difference
“Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed it’s the only thing that
ever has.”—Margaret Mead
None of us can “save” the
world, whatever that
might mean. Yet each of us
can be a part of changing
the world, of making a difference.
Making choices for our health and
well-being which respects the health and
well-being of others, we believe is the greatest
way to do this. With consumer decisions
to choices about our social/political
activism to our life’s vocation we all have
opportunities to make an impact on our
world.
The best way we can think of to illustrate
what we mean by this is to tell you
part of our story. We tell it only as a means
to share what we’ve learned over the years
in the hope that others may glean some
insight to add to their own wisdom about
how they too might do that which changes
the world.
We began by pledging our efforts and
our careers to saving the soil—working
with farmers to convert acres from the ravages
of conventional farming to the more
logical and harmonious method of organic
farming. Harmful chemicals in the form of
pesticides and synthetic fertilizers wreak
havoc upon the land, putting toxins onto
the food we eat and leaving the land lifeless,
poisoning the water, earth and air.
Supporting and expanding organic
farming, which works with the natural balance
of the earth rather than using toxic
chemicals, seemed to us one way to make a
difference in our world. We would do this
by making and selling organically-grown
products.
We made beautiful and great tasting
blue corn chips. But we had a problem—
after storing the corn for several months,
the chips that resulted were not blue, but
gray. We tried everything, or so we thought.
Finally we asked the farmer if he had any
suggestions. He got a certain gleam in his
eye and said yes. He thought that working
cotton, which needs less nitrogen, into the
crop rotation would leave more nitrogen in
the soil for the corn. Sure enough it worked
and we had chips that didn’t lose their
color. We also had a crop of organic cotton
that he wanted us to sell for him.
Being in the natural food business we
couldn’t figure out why organic cotton was
important—after all you couldn’t eat it,
right? Wanting to support this farmer sent
us to looking into things.
Here is some of what we found:
Conventionally grown cotton uses only
2–3 percent of all the cultivated land in the
world yet consumes 25 percent of the
earth’s pesticides each year. To grow the cotton
for just one T-shirt requires approximately
1/3 pound of chemicals. Many of
these chemicals are known cancer causing
agents. Conventional cotton is so toxin
laden that the “gin trash” (stems, leaves,
etc.) which makes good livestock feed is
banned from such use in California because
of the high concentrations of pesticide
residue found in it.
The startling facts don’t end when the
cotton is harvested. Each stage of making
cotton into clothing or bedding adds
numerous harmful chemicals. Silicone
waxes, harsh petroleum scours, heavy metals,
solvents, flame and soil retardant,
ammonium compounds, even formaldehyde
are used.
Suddenly it became apparent that to
produce the food and clothing which we
use every day contributes less to our health
and brings with it harmful toxins, the
destruction of the soil and the planet. We
had long recognized the benefits of paying
attention to the kind of food with which
we nourish our bodies. What about our
skin, which is our largest organ and
“breathes,” absorbing what we put onto it?
Our clothing and our bedding; fabric
which is touching our skin almost every
minute of our lives even made from cotton,
which is a natural fiber, can be a surprising
source of toxins for our body.
These facts told us what an unexpected
gift we had in our farmer’s crop of organic
cotton. We knew we had to do something
with it. We started small, making
organic cotton socks and then T-shirts
because we thought they would be simple,
easy. Now, almost 10 years later we have a
whole line of clothing and accessories we
like to think of as comfortable, affordable,
durable and made by using the most environment-
sustaining materials and methods.
We make them from certified organic
fibers (cotton, linen, hemp, wool) and
now offer socks, baby and children’s
clothes, polo shirts, T-shirts, camisoles,
underwear, nightshirts, bedding, gloves,
mittens, aprons and tote bags.
But a funny thing happened on the way
to saving acres by making this clothing. We
developed personal relationships not only
with our farmers but also with the spinners,
knitters, dyers and sewers, all who were
involved in making our products. We discovered
that while we intended to save
acres our work was actually about respecting
the lives of all these different people.
We discovered that what we were doing
could make an
important difference in their lives.
The best way to show this is another
story, one of our favorites. It happened one
week in 1997 at a T-shirt sewing facility in
a little town in Alabama. According to the
owner of the plant, the whole place that
week was, “a-hummin’ and a-buzzin’
because our T-shirts are in a museum in
Paris, France!”
The organic cotton shirts sewn by those
women, with artwork from a screen printer
in Vermont, had just been stocked by the
gift shop in the Louvre. Displayed on a
mannequin outside the shop in the museum’s
mezzanine, visitors from all over the
world saw those T-shirts on their way to
view the Mona Lisa and other art treasures.
Suddenly these women were not “just making T-shirts” any more—they were crafting
masterpieces. Although the casual observer may not
be able to notice the excellence of the shirts sewn
that week, the pride and joy those women put into
their work gave those shirts an ineffable quality of
greatness.
| While saving dollars for ourselves, what cost are we incurring
on the lives of the women, men and children who make the
items filling our closets? What costs are we incurring in our
own lives by so casually disregarding these neighbors just
around the global corner? |
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After this facility closed down, along with many
others in the United States, we found ourselves
struggling to remain competitive in an industry
getting their garments from Third World countries
with no EPA standards. While many of these sweatshops
provide needed work for people, they do so
by forcing them into an indentured servitude.
Because in our mind there is no environmental
sustainability without social responsibility, we had
to find viable alternatives. By partnering with a
foundation and pledging our sewing contracts,
we’ve been able to inspire the creation of
“Maquilador Mujeres,” a new sewing cooperative
in Nueva Vida, Nicaragua. Twenty miles outside of
Managua, Neuva Vida is home to “refugees” of
Hurricane Mitch and other natural disasters. With
virtually no infrastructure in the region, daily survival
has become a constant struggle. Since the hurricane,
many of the women in the village have been
traveling to free-trade zones to work in sweatshops
under conditions most Americans would find
appalling.
We pledged our resources and our sewing contracts
and the sewers received a grant to establish
a sewing cooperative. They’ve spent a year building
a plant with their own labor, getting equipment
in place (which they guard themselves by
taking turns sleeping in the plant) getting electricity
set up and finally actually preparing to produce
garments.
The T-shirts, with a design the women themselves
helped create (and eventually other garments),
will be made by women who have become
vested members in this worker-owned and built
plant. They will earn a share of its profits and
have pledged to use some of those profits to
support development of other community-based
businesses.
The quality of the garments made by a partowner
determining working conditions and sharing
in the profits of her labors must be vastly superior
to those of an indentured servant driven to produce
quickly with little consideration of who she is and
what her needs are. One
garment is produced in
pain; the other comes from
pride.
While trying to save acres
we discovered that in conventional
clothing production ravages
are wrought upon the lives of
the people who produce the garments
we wear. Feeding our desire for social acceptance
through specific styles and brand names
while meeting budgetary considerations has fueled
a rampant consumerism in our country. While
saving dollars for ourselves, what cost are we
incurring on the lives of the women, men and
children who make the items filling our closets?
What costs are we incurring in our own lives by so
casually disregarding these neighbors just around
the global corner?
Who made the clothes you are wearing right
now? How old were they? Under what conditions
did they work, for how long and how much were
they paid for their labor?
What kind of fiber was used to
make the fabric which is now
next to your skin? How was
it produced? Who grew it?
Using what sorts of
chemicals? How is the
land that grew the fiber?
Asking these questions,
finding some
answers, making some
choices for your own health
and well-being, which respects
the health and well-being of others,
is a powerful way you too can
work toward changing the
world.
We feel blessed to be able
to do what we do, to have the
opportunity to make a difference
in the lives of others. And
we’re blessed to know others
who feel the same way we do. Our
lives are enriched because of this and
we hope our story helps you in making
choices that enhance your health, your wellbeing
and goes toward changing our world.
For more information contact:
Maggies Functional Organic’s
1-800-609-8593
www.organicclothes.com
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