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The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [185]

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80,000 chemicals in commerce, only a small percentage of them have ever been screened for even one potential health effect, such as cancer, reproductive toxicity, developmental toxicity, or impacts on the immune system. Among the approximately 15,000 tested, few have been studied enough to correctly estimate potential risks from exposure. Even when testing is done, each chemical is tested individually rather than in the combinations that one is exposed to in the real world. In reality, no one is ever exposed to a single chemical, but to a chemical soup, the ingredients of which may interact to cause unpredictable health effects.” From “Chemical Body Burden,” Coming Clean (chemicalbodyburden.org/whatisbb.htm).

3. Theo Colburn, John Peter Myers, and Dianne Dumanoski, Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival? (New York: Plume Books, 1997). See the Our Stolen Future website for chapter synopses (ourstolenfuture.org/Basics/chapters.htm) and recent news about chemical exposures (ourstolenfuture.org/New/recentimportant.htm).

4. Fred Pearce, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008), p. 89.

5. A. K. Chapagain, A. Y. Hoekstra, H. H. G. Savenije, and R. Gautam, “The water footprint of cotton consumption,” Ecological Economics, vol. 60, no. 1, November 1, 2006, pp. 201–2 (waterfootprint.org/Reports/Report18.pdf).

6. Ibid., p. 187.

7. Ibid., p. 195.

8. Ibid., p. 186.

9. Ibid., p. 187.

10. Pearce, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner, pp. 111–12.

11. Ibid., p. 90.

12. Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), p. 162.

13. “Problems with conventional cotton production,” Pesticide Action Network North America (panna.org/Node/570).

14. Ibid.

15. Pearce, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner, p. 114.

16. Charles Benbrook, Pest Management at the Crossroads (Yonkers, N.Y.: Consumer’s Union, 1996), p. 2.

17. “Problems with conventional cotton production.”

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Billie J. Collier, Martin Bide, and Phyllis Tortora, Understanding Textiles (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2008), p. 11.

21. Ibid., pp. 20–27.

22. Michael Lackman, “Care What You Wear: Facts on Cotton and Clothing Production,” Organic Consumers Association, June 29, 2007 (organicconsumers.org/articles/article_6347.cfm).

23. Michael Lackman, “Permanent Press: Facts behind the fabrics,” OrganicClothing.blogs.com, January 3, 2009 (organicclothing.blogs.com/my_weblog/2009/

01/permanent-press-facts-behind-the-fabrics.html).

24. “Formaldehyde,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov/iaq/formalde.html#Health Effects).

25. Lackman, “Care What You Wear.”

26. Chapagain, Hoekstra, Savenije, and Gautam, “The water footprint of cotton consumption,” p. 202.

27. Pearce, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner, p. 104.

28. “Haitian Garment Factory Conditions,” Campaign for Labor Rights Newsletter, July 8, 1997 (hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/136.html).

29. Personal correspondence with Yannick Etienne, August 2009.

30. “Lawmakers Vote to Increase Minimum Wage for Haitians,” Caribarena, August 5, 2009 (caribarena.com/caribbean/haiti/haiti-lawmakers-vote-to-increase-minimum-wage-for-haitians.html">caribarena.com/caribbean/haiti/haiti-lawmakers-vote-to-increase-minimum-wage-for-haitians.html).

31. Pearce, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner, p. 91.

32. “The Footprint Chronicles: Tracking the Environmental and Social Impact of Patagonia Clothing and Apparel,” Patagonia (patagonia.com/web/us/footprint/index.jsp).

33. Susan Kinsella, “The History of Paper,” Resource Recycling, June 1990 (conservatree.org/learn/Papermaking/History.shtml).

34. Ibid.

35. “Environmentally Sound Paper Overview: Environmental Issues. Part III—Making Paper: Content,” Conservatree (conservatree.org/learn/Essential%20Issues/EIPaperContent.shtml).

36. “Book Sector,” Green Press Initiative (greenpressinitiative.org/about/bookSector.htm).

37. “The Trees of Central Park,” Central Park Conservancy (centralparknyc.org/site/PageNavigator/

virtualpark_cptreedbase).

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