Good Good Good · 14 hours ago

1,000 People Buried Their Underwear in the Name of Science

A Canadian farmer's disappointment over a pair of pristine white Hanes underwear quietly set him on a decade-long journey to restore the living world beneath his feet. The "Soil Your Undies" campaign - now embraced by farmers, gardeners, and scientists across multiple countries - turns out to be one of the more elegant ideas in modern agriculture: bury cotton, wait, and let the earth tell you what it knows. When Norm Lamothe dug up his second pair in 2022, they were far more tattered, a small but hard-won sign that something underground had come back to life. Meanwhile, 1,000 volunteers across Switzerland buried more than 2,000 pairs of underwear for a citizen science project, helping researchers confirm that "how soil is managed can significantly affect both soil life and soil quality." There is something quietly arresting about all of this - the idea that the health of the planet can be measured in decomposing underwear, and that ordinary people, given the right invitation, will get on their knees and dig.