© 2024 KRWG
News that Matters.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Photos: The Planet Money T-Shirt Goes To Indonesia

Robert Smith
/
NPR

This week, Jess Jiang and Robert Smith visited the factory in Indonesia where U.S. cotton was spun into yarn for the Planet Money T-shirt. (They also visited several other factories.) Here are some of the pictures Robert posted to our T-Shirt Tumblr.

Other than this woman spot checking some of the cotton, no human's hands touch the yarn. It's all machines, shooting strings of cotton, twisting and twirling and winding.

Robert Smith / NPR
/
NPR

This photo is a montage of my favorite thing. The "sliver" (rhymes with MacGyver) is a wispy ponytail of cotton that swoops and twirls through the air, ducking in and out of big ugly machines. I wanted to grab it.

Robert Smith / NPR
/
NPR

Jess Jiang records a room full of ring spinners, which put the final twist on the yarn.

Robert Smith / NPR
/
NPR

Yarn is checked for contamination in the UV light room. Even a single strand of hair will show up.

When I was touring the spinning plant, I kept shoving samples into my pockets. What starts as raw American cotton (top left) turns into something like baby's hair (top right), then into cotton candy (bottom left), then into finished yarn (bottom right). The yarn is knit into the fabric to make T-shirts.

Robert Smith / NPR
/
NPR

For more pictures and videos from our travels, see our T-Shirt Tumblr. #seedtoshirt

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Robert Smith is a host for NPR's Planet Money where he tells stories about how the global economy is affecting our lives.