Organic Cotton - What's the Deal?

It's sort of easy to see why organically grown fruits and veggies can have an impact on us. But cotton? What's the deal with cotton. It's not like we eat it!

I try to use organic cotton in my products as much as possible. All of my cloth pads (aka mama pads) are made with Bamboo/Organic Cotton blends. My cloth baby wipes / family cloth is made from 55% hemp/ 45% organic cotton fleece.

But since you don't eat it why should it matter?

I found a great site : The Pesticide Action Network of North America - PANNA

According to PANNA conventional cotton is the most pesticide intensive crop grown:

Conventionally grown cotton uses more insecticides than any other single
crop and epitomizes the worst effects of chemically dependent agriculture.
Each year cotton producers around the world use nearly $2.6 billion worth of
pesticides -- more than 10% of the world's pesticides and nearly 25% of the
world's insecticides.

Cotton growers typically use many of the most hazardous
pesticides on the market including aldicarb, phorate, methamidophos and
endosulfan. Cotton pesticides are often broad spectrum organophosphates--pesticides originally developed as toxic nerve agents during World War II--and carbamate pesticides.

Pesticides used on cotton-even when used according to instructions-harm people, wildlife and the environment.

These pesticides can poison farm workers, drift into
neighboring communities, contaminate ground and surface water and kill
beneficial insects and soil micro-organisms.

source: http://www.panna.org/files/conventionalCotton.dv.html

Obviously it's not always possible to get organic cotton but I do whenever I can. Our family cloth/ baby wipes are all made with 55% hemp/ 45% organic cotton and the bamboo blends I use in our Domino Pads all have organic cotton as the second component (after bamboo).