Sheryl from Twisted Limb Paperworks converted some of our organic cotton scraps to paper. A combination of manila folder folders and the t-shirt scraps were used to create cards. The T-shirt scraps were in the Hollander beater for seven hours before they were broken down enough. Usually, her recycled paper is in this beater for only an hour. Twisted Limb Paperworks sustainably produces handmade 100% recycled paper. Below is a photo of a mold for the paper pulp.

The Downtown Burlington co-op grocery took several hundred pounds of scraps and packed them into the open side of a rolling partition wall, then covered the side with chicken wire to hold the scraps in. The wall is now sound absorbent, drastically improving the acoustic quality of the building.

Eric Henry receive the Sustainability Champion Award from Sustainable North Carolina. The SNC Awards honor businesses, organizations, and individuals who have demonstrated leadership in promoting a sustainable economy in the state. Eric was one of two individuals who were selected as Sustainability Champion, an honor which recognizes individuals whose efforts are advancing sustainable “triple bottom line” approaches through creative leadership and dedication.

Eric is standing between Chuck Swoboda, CEO of Cree, and Katy Ansardi of Sustainable North Carolina after accepting his award.

Tom has been working with 19 students from Professor Will Hooker’s Permaculture Design Studio class at NCSU to develop a landscaping plan for TS Designs. This plan will include a conversion of our landscape to more edible plants like nut and fruit trees, berries, grapes, etc. So far we have built 3 trellises and planted pecan trees, magnolia, choctaw, pawnee, kiwi, and much more. In the photo above, the students are hanging up their designs to be critiqued. Stay tuned for updates on how everything is growing.

Tom has been working with 19 students from Professor Will Hooker’s Permaculture Design Studio class at NCSU to develop a landscaping plan for TS Designs. This plan will include a conversion of our landscape to more edible plants like nut and fruit trees, berries, grapes, etc. So far we have built 3 trellises and planted pecan trees, magnolia, choctaw, pawnee, kiwi, and much more. In the photo above, the students are hanging up their designs to be critiqued. Stay tuned for updates on how everything is growing.

Tom has been working with 19 students from Professor Will Hooker’s Permaculture Design Studio class at NCSU to develop a landscaping plan for TS Designs. This plan will include a conversion of our landscape to more edible plants like nut and fruit trees, berries, grapes, etc. So far we have built 3 trellises and planted pecan trees, magnolia, choctaw, pawnee, kiwi, and much more. In the photo above, the students are hanging up their designs to be critiqued. Stay tuned for updates on how everything is growing.

With all the discussions going on about potential changes in healthcare and energy costs on the rise, we at TSD are looking back at how we started working to mitigate those upcoming challenges years ago.

Not a day goes by that we aren’t asked why our t-shirts cost more. Our NC-made, organic cotton, responsibly-printed/dyed shirts are about $12/piece versus an overseas-manufactured, conventional cotton, PVC/phthalate-printed shirt at about $8/piece.

Part of the journey to be a more sustainable company is understanding your real cost, to people, planet, and bottom line. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which businesses do not have to recognize all their external costs and consumers don’t understand how those costs are ultimately passed on to them. Here’s to the hundreds of our clients who have figured it out, and support us with their business.

TS Designs is proud to help sponsor Vote for Land 2009, a $3000 grant program put together by our friends over at Great Outdoor Provisions to aid in the protection of the lands, water, and wildlife of North Carolina.

This year’s winner is the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust. Coastal Land Trust works with the state and other organizations to permanently protect Masonboro Island, the largest undisturbed barrier island along the southern part of North Carolina’s coast and host to a vast array of wildlife.

On March 24th, TSD was honored by Apparel Magazine as one of five Sustainability All-Stars at its Tech Conference West in Irvine, CA. The winners were chosen based upon having taken significant steps toward incorporating sustainable best practices in their businesses.

TSD won this honor alongside sustainability innovators American Apparel, Greensource, Levi Strauss, and Patagonia.

Below are some comparisons of standard plastisol ink contents compared to TSD water-based ink contents. As an obligatory disclaimer, this information is to the best of my knowledge based on what I researched in early 2009.

It’s important to know that not all water-based inks are environmentally friendly and not all plastisol inks are terribly detrimental to the environment. If you’re not printing with TSD, make sure to investigate and verify the composition of your printer’s inks in order to make an enlightened decision. Make sure to get full ink content disclosure from your printer!

There are four basic components of a screenprinting ink:

Pigment – the color. Pigments can either be powders or liquids. Pigments, as opposed to dyes, are not water-soluble.

• Plastisol and some water-based inks often contain heavy metals in order to make them heavier and more opaque or to increase the light- and wash-fastness of the print. Certain Azo-based pigments contain structures that are suspected to cause health problems.
• TSD pigments contain only trace heavy metals by design (less than 100ppm, the same as drinking water), but maintain good light- and wash-fastness because of the printing methods used.

Carrier – the vessel for delivering the pigment to the shirt

• Plastisol inks use a solvent, typically petroleum-based with high VOCs (volatile organic compounds), as a carrier to dissolve the pigment and the binder.
• Our inks use potable water as a carrier, which suspends the pigment in the mixture rather than dissolving it.

Thickener – keeps the ink from bleeding out onto the shirt after being printed

• Plastisol inks typically use a synthetic, petroleum-based plastic polymer as a thickener. The most common thickener for plastisol inks is PVC (poly vinyl chloride), which contains phthalates and other chemical additives that can leech out over time.
• TSD inks use a cellulose-based thickener; in other words, made from wood. It is completely biodegradable.

Binder – binds the pigment to the fiber

• PVC is the standard binder for plastisol inks. The thickener and binder are often similar PVC chemistries.
• TSD inks use a synthetic acrylic binder. While it is not rapidly biodegradable, it contains no vinyl structures or functional groups (e.g. chlorine or fluorine), and is entirely inert (thus non-toxic). Elmer’s Glue® is another example of an acrylic binder, one that is chemically almost identical to our binder.

Envision Smart Green Episode 1 Featurette: TS Designs from Envision Smart Green on Vimeo

by Eric Henry and Eric Michel
I recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of running my 2000 Volkswagen TDI on locally-made biodiesel. That’s over 100,000 miles on a fuel that was made from waste vegetable oil, collected from restaurants right here in Alamance County. People frequently ask me why I drive a foreign-made car when [...]

Mebtec is a computer and electronics collection and dismantling center located in Mebane, NC. Their facility handles the dismantling and sorting of donated computers and other electronics into their base components (e.g. plastic casings, circuit boards, metal pieces, etc.), then ships those components off to various companies, many located in NC, to be recycled. [...]