Cotton

'White gold' — your clothes come from it

Your T-shirt, jeans and bedsheet — all made of cotton! Cotton is the fruit of the cotton plant: in autumn the boll opens and fluffy white fibre comes out. Uzbekistan is one of the biggest cotton-growing countries in the world. One T-shirt needs 200 grams of cotton — that's 15 bolls. Cotton seeds are pressed for oil too.

Cotton (Gossypium, 4 cultivated species; mostly G. hirsutum in Uzbekistan) is a plant whose fibre is the hair around its seeds; the fibre is 95% cellulose. It has been grown for 7,000 years (India, Peru). Uzbekistan harvests about 3 million tonnes of raw cotton a year — 6th–7th in the world; in Soviet times the 'cotton monoculture' and its irrigation dried up the Aral Sea. Forced labour was ended in 2020 and the Cotton Campaign boycott lifted; today clusters turn fibre into textiles locally. One kg of fibre takes 10,000 litres of water — drip irrigation is spreading. Seeds give oil and cake; 'white gold' is the backbone of the economy.

Fun facts

• One T-shirt = 200 g of cotton = 15 bolls.
• Cotton fibre is the hair around the seed — it helps the wind carry seeds.
• Paper money is made of cotton too — a dollar bill is 75% cotton!