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spacer Clothing: Black Scooped Neck Long Sleeved Shirt spacer  
 

Narrative: H&M; Black scooped neck long sleeved shirt; Small; Made in Bangladesh
95% pima cotton and 5% elastane. Given to me from artist Marguerite Day in 2009. The cotton process demands cultivators rip out weeds and grass that may compete with the cotton. Land is plowed under and soil is broken up and formed into rows. Cottonseed is planted. The boll matures in a period that ranges from 55 to 80 days. Ten weeks after flowers first appeared, fibers split the boll apart, and cotton pushes forth. The process includes seeding, picking, ginning, and baling. Samples are taken from the bales to determine the quality of the cotton. At this point the cotton plant is defoliated if it is to be machine harvested. Defoliation is often accomplished by spraying the plant with a chemical. At a mill the bale is broken, the fibers are opened by a comb-like device, mixed together, and cleaned. The cleaned cotton fibers are called laps. The laps are fed into a carding machine that separates the fibers. Further cleaning and sorting readies the fibers for processing into thread.

H&M's supply chain consists of Factory Employees, Second-tier Suppliers, Suppliers, Shippers, Auditors, Merchandisers, and Buyers. Cotton is farmed and picked in India, China, and Turkey Clothing design and samples made in Stockholm, Sweden where the headquarters are located. Dying mills and water supply near the Yangtze River in China. Washed and cleaned with water from the Brahmaputra River in Assam. Made and manufactured in Dhaka, Bangladesh; Bangkok, Thailand; Bangalore, Karnataka, India; Bandung, Indonesia; among others. H&M clothing labels and tags are printed in Stockholm, Sweden (approved by the EU Ecolabel Company). Papers are made from Forest Stewardship Council trees (FSC certified). Final products are sent to Hamburg, Germany where they are distributed to store locations. In a recent study commissioned by Greenpeace International, several major clothing brands including H&M were found guilty of using nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) in the manufacturing process. This chemical breaks down into toxic nonylphenol (NP), which has hormone-disrupting properties that persist over time and can be hazardous even at low levels.

 

 

 

 

  mary mattingly
       

 

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