• Non-organic cotton occupies only 3% of the world’s farmland, but uses 25% of the world’s chemical pesticides which ends up not only in the cotton, but in the air, water and soil.
  
• The most acutely toxic pesticide registered by the Environment Protection Agency is aldicarb. In California alone between 1970 and 1994, 85 to 95% of total aldicarb was used on cotton.
  
• Organic cotton farmers eliminate the use of toxic chemicals in every step of the growing process by emphasizing natural and biological methods which do not harm the environment.

• On average, each person in the UK consumes 198 kg of paper and board per year. Tissue paper cannot be recycled for hygienic reasons.
• More than 6 million trees are felled each year in North America just for tissue products.
  
  

The consumer trend towards high quality and luxury toilet paper is driving a wasteful and unnecessary use of the world´s forests WWF

For more information about paper tissue see:

• Introduced just over 30 years ago, plastic bag consumption rate is now estimated at well over 500,000,000,000 (that’s 500 billion) plastic bags annually, or almost 1 million per minute.
• Eight billion plastic bags are handed out in the UK each year – or over 134 for every one of us. (Some sources quote the total number given out as 13 billion, 17 billion and 17.5 billion. The numbers are, uhm, plastic.)
• Once brought into existence single-use bags accumulate and persist on our planet for up to 1,000 years - but nobody really knows for sure.
• Only 1 in 200 plastic bags in the UK are recycled.
• Dioxins are produced when plastics are incinerated.
• Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistake them for food.
• The average person uses each plastic bag for only 12 minutes.
• Each high quality reusable bag you use has the potential to eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime.

The organic cotton string bags, hankies and gift bags sold on this site are either un-dyed (in natural grown cotton colours) or dyed only with non-AZO dyes. When placed alongside non-organic fabrics and wrapping paper, these items might appear dull, but there are good reasons for this. The following websites explain why:

• 8,000 tonnes of paper or 40,000 trees are used to make wrapping paper – for Christmas presents alone?
• It is estimated that as much as 83 square km of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey – over Christmas alone?
• Cotton and other fabric gift bags can be reused many times over?