The fashion industry is also the second-largest consumer of water worldwide.
It takes about 700 gallons of water to produce one cotton shirt. That’s enough water for one person to drink at least eight cups per day for three-and-a-half years.
It takes about 2,000 gallons of water to produce a pair of jeans. That’s more than enough for one person to drink eight cups per day for 10 years.
That’s because both the jeans and the shirt are made from a highly water-intensive plant: cotton.
In Uzbekistan, for example, cotton farming used up so much water from the Aral Sea that it dried up after about 50 years. Once one of the world’s four largest lakes, the Aral Sea is now little more than desert and a few small ponds.