If you think that your use of cotton totes has been helping to save the environment, think again

The use of cotton totes may not be as environmentally friendly as you think. It has been found that rather than being earth-friendly, society’s gradual adoption, or over-adoption of cotton totes in place of plastic bags has created a new environmental problem.

Specifically, studies have revealed that cotton totes have to be used daily for 54 years in order to offset its overall impact of production. Further, amongst other problems, these totes involve a water-intensive production process, are associated with forced labour, and are difficult to dispose in an environmentally low-impact way.

Worse still, each of us likely owns more cotton totes than we need. The excessive production and consumption of cotton totes is clear today as cotton totes today have become a branding tool that companies produce and distribute in large quantities for free advertising. This heavily exacerbates the environmental issues linked to cotton totes production and gives rise to the cotton tote dilemma that we face today.

Ironically, in an attempt to make the supposedly environmentally friendly choice of using cotton totes, our reliance on these totes has inadvertently generated other consequences in detriment of the environment.