By Michael Ray

ETHICAL THREADS is a company that produces ethically-made T-shirts and other garments. This year they will be doing Glastonbury Festival's T-shirts.

We at Bridport Eco-Youth have decided to use them for our group's T-shirts because ethical trade will help make poverty history.

Ethical production means that - in a broad sense -everyone involved is treated fairly and at each stage in the production, the people involved are respected.

We thought that this was important because many high-street retailers are not taking it into account.

By choosing to not buy products that are ethically made, you are sustaining the injustices involved in making them, which perpetuates the hardship.

Third World countries are particularly badly hit because the workers cannot afford to complain or strike as there is little alternative.

If we take, for example, a T-shirt bought from a high-street retailer without an ethical policy, the producers may have suffered terribly so that you can save a little money.

Such a T-shirt could be made out of unethically produced cotton, that was grown with harmful pesticides in half the natural amount of time; robbing the earth of its nutrients as well as damaging workers' health (five of the top nine pesticides used on cotton are currently classified as carcinogenic).

It may have been sewn together in a squalid sweat-shop where the workers are paid a pittance for their efforts under dangerous conditions.

Companies like Ethical Threads benefit these communities enormously. By using ethical sources, they are helping people to sustain themselves. Creating safe, fair environments to work in, with a fair wage, means they can begin to lift themselves out of poverty.

As well as easing your conscience, ethical products are more often than not of better quality because they have been made by people that are treated fairly and can enjoy their work.

Imagine working for someone that doesn't respect you. The animosity you feel is bound to show in the quality of your work. In my experience, it is false economy to buy cheaper products that break in half the time because, effectively, you end up having to buy them twice.

It is logical to me to spend a little more on an ethical product that you will not wear out so quickly.

So how do you know you are buying ethically? There are various sign posts to look out for. Often the Fairtrade symbol can be seen, or it will be marked as organic.

If you are not sure you can sometimes see on retailers' websites. If their suppliers and products are ethical, the chances are that they are going to want to publicise it, as it gives them an edge over their competitors. If you are not sure why not ask in store?