1. COTTON AND ITS USES
By Lucy

2. Uses of cotton
Cotton is used for many things, such as clothes, cotton ball, cotton buds, bed sheets, reusable cotton nappies, yarn and denim fabric.
Some products made from cotton include, tents, army uniforms, bed sheets, towels, astronauts’ inflight space suits and even medical supplies and food products.
Some of the food products that cotton is used in is, cottonseed oil which is used for soup, margarine and cosmetics.
Cotton is also used in sheep and cattle feed.

3. Cotton as a fibre
Cotton fibres are linters (short fibres) that are used to make fabrics and other materials such as paper for money.
Cotton fibres is used for cotton wool, yarn, rayon, paper, velvet, x-ray film and explosives.
The cotton linters can be made into good quality paper to make United States, Japanese and European banknotes are made from cotton paper and Australian banknotes used to be made.

4. Cotton seed oil Cotton seed oil has many uses:-
1) Cooking – vegetable oil, salad oil, margarine, icings, whipped toppings, potato chips, baked goods, cereals, mayonnaise
2) Personal hygiene products- soap, laundry detergents
3) Other products- Plastics, synthetics and rubber.
The cotton seed contains a useful oil that is collected by crushing the seed. Before collecting the oil the small fuzzy bits of lint are removed. These fibres are called linters.
The kernels pass through rollers to flatten them and then they are cooked. The kernels are then pressed to squeeze out the oil, the oil is then made pure (refined) and used in the products listed above.

5. Other cotton products
1) Cotton Seed meal- the leftover part of the kernel is called meal, it contains protein and it is fed to cattle, pigs and poultry.
2) Homewares- The fibre from one 227kg cotton bale can produce 250 single bed sheets, 3000 nappies, or cotton balls.

6. Cotton properties Cotton has many properties, such as:
Machine washable
Dry cleanable
Comfortable and soft
Easy to handle and sew
Prints well
Good absorbency
Colour retention

7. How clothes are made
Clothes are made by a clothing manufacturer, they buy the fabrics from the weaving mills and sells the finished garments to shops.
A designer drafts a pattern for the piece of clothing and they decide how it should be made and how the fabrics, threads, buttons and trims should be used.
At the factory the fabrics is laid out in many layers and it is then cut. The pieces are stacked in bundles ready to be sewn. The machinists use sewing machines to sew the pieces of fabric together.
The product is then checked by a quality controller.
If the product is exactly right it is then sent off to the shops.

8. Cotton for clothing
Cotton is used in many different types of clothing. One of the main ones that people don’t usually know has a lot of cotton in it is denim.
One bale of cotton can make up to 215 pairs of jeans, 249 bed sheets, 409 men’s sports shirts, 690 bath towels, 765 men’s dress shirts or 4300 pairs of socks.

9. Bibliography cottonaustralia.com.au › Australian Cotton › Basics
cottonaustralia.com.au › Cotton Library › Fact Sheets
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