Cotton In Queensland

I have been passing Road trains laden with cotton in huge bales, and was fortunate enough to find a truck parked at a reststop at Comet. I was able to talk to the driver who said the cotton was being delivered to Emerald..

http://www.qcotton.com.au/cotton-operations.html

Queensland Cotton operates eleven state of the art cotton gins throughout Queensland and New South Wales, with a combined ginning capacity of more than one million bales. Our cotton gins are located in Emerald, Moura, Cecil Plains, Dalby, two at St George, Dirranbandi, Mungindi, Collarenebri, Wee Waa, and Warren.

 

Queensland Cotton’s gins process seed cotton from growers into baled lint ready for spinning into yarn.

We market cotton to all major consuming markets including Japan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, China, Thailand, Pakistan, South Korea, India, Italy, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Queensland Cotton’s marketing department continually seeks new trading opportunities and our marketing presence in other countries has been the spearhead for the company’s global expansion.

The cotton making process begins with harvesting. Once cotton is harvested, it is cleaned and separated from the seeds in a process called ginning. It is then wrapped up into bales for further processing into materials. The cotton is then yarned and sold as pieces of material to make cloths and other garments.

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. Under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will tend to increase the dispersion of the seeds.

The plant is a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, Africa, and India. The greatest diversity of wild cotton species is found in Mexico, followed by Australia and Africa.^[1] Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds.

The fiber is most often spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile. The use of cotton for fabric is known to date to prehistoric times; fragments of cotton fabric dated from 5000 BC have been excavated in Mexico and the Indus Valley Civilization (modern day Pakistan and some parts of India). Although cultivated since antiquity, it was the invention of the cotton gin that so lowered the cost of production that led to its widespread use, and it is the most widely used natural fiber cloth in clothing today.

Current estimates for world production are about 25 million tonnes or 110 million bales annually, accounting for 2.5% of the world’s arable land. China is the world’s largest producer of cotton

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Cotton