On my first tour of TS Designs, I was immediately impressed by each and every sustainable innovation on the premises. One of my absolute favorite features, however, is the Garden of Eat’n. This extensive employee-grown garden provides veggies for those of us who spend a few hours per week hoeing, watering, and loving the plants. It is just one more aspect of TS Designs that makes us so incredibly unique. We not only are all about making the very best t-shirt around, but we plug sustainability into all facets of our lives… our faces being one of those extremely important facets.

“Buying local” has been one of the latest pushes in the Green Movement. As Eric Henry (our beloved President of TS Designs) once said, “Just because you bought that cheeseburger from the McDonald’s down the street from your house does not mean you are buying local.” Unfortunately, some people still fail to make the distinction between products that are “final destination local” and “of local origin”.

I am personally a grocery snob. There, I said it. During the school year, I carpool with my other hippie friends once a month to drive from Elon, NC to Chapel Hill, NC (a forty minute hop, skip, and a jump away) to hit up our nearest Trader Joe’s. They supply fantastic organic, antibiotic-free, grass-fed, crunchy granola groceries from peanut butter to soy nuggets. I love Trader Joe’s. However, with summer in full swing, I’ve been looking to farmer’s markets for my produce runs.

But buyer beware! Ask the vendors where their goods are from. It’s very easy to strike up a conversation with a overall-bedecked fellow peddling tomatoes, “Hey there, these tomatoes look lovely, do you grow all of these yourself?” And you will be met with one of two answers, “Why yes I do,” or “Nope, just shipped these bad boys in from Mexico.” Having been to a Burlington, NC farmer’s market and receiving the latter of the two responses, I make certain I know exactly what I’m buying, and where it came from.

By becoming a conscientious consumer, you are not only keeping yourself informed of what you’re putting in your body, but also knowing exactly where your dollar is going. Buying local supports the local economy, your local growers, and your overall well-being. Not sure where to start your journey to becoming a better buyer in North Carolina? Keep reading.

SAXAPAHAW RIVER MILL

http://www.rivermillvillage.com/farmers.html

A quaint little town filled with history, fantastic people, and even better food. On Saturday afternoons, Saxapahaw boasts an incredible Market & Music Series, bringing the best organic goods, crafts, and musical talent to one riverside hill. Bring your blanket and an empty cooler for an amazing picnic to be contributed to by the Saxapahaw vendors. Don’t forget to stop by the general store! (I highly recommend the goat burger.)

GROWING SMALL FARMS: North Carolina Cooperative Extension

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/SustAg/otherareamarkets.html

This resource contains a plethora of excellent locations all over the Triangle Area to find the farmers market nearest you. I have explored several of the markets on the list, however my favorite thus far is the Downtown Raleigh site in terms of convenience for me.

WHY BE THE VILLAGE IDIOT WHEN YOU CAN BE A LOCAL HERO?

Peace, love & t-shirts,

Natalie

A few years ago, we looked at the production chain of a printed t-shirt and separated its impact into 3 categories:

• Where the shirts were made
• What the shirts were made of
• How they were printed

We’re always striving to push the envelope of sustainability with each of these impacts. But addressing every one certainly gets expensive, so we always encourage our customers to address what they can afford, and push to continuously improve the footprint of their shirts.

For over a year now, TSD has been committed to only processing orders that meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Made in the US
• Made out of a sustainable fiber
• Printed with low-impact water-based or other PVC/phthalate-free inks

We’re not in this to be the only sustainability-minded printer. We want to raise the bar in our industry, and the best way to do that in a capitalist society is demand. If you’re buying t-shirts, whether you buy from TSD or not, consider committing to a process of continuous improvement for your products. The more demand for a more sustainable product, the more the industry will convert to a more sustainable model.

Here at TS Designs we are all about sustainability. We focus on sustainability in our product, our business practices, and our final impact on the environment. However, there is only so much we can do, the rest of the environmental choices are up to the consumer. In a 2007 report commissioned by the Danish EPA, an environmental assessment was conducted on six textile products—one of those was the cotton t-shirt.

The report concluded that it is the consumer of the product that ultimately has the greatest impact on the environment—first by choosing an organic product, and then by washing as little as possible, drip-drying, and not ironing.

So if you have ever wondered what you can do for the environment, you can make informed decisions on how you launder your t-shirts. Here at TS Designs, we recommend you wash your clothes with cold water using environmentally friendly detergents and line-dry. According to the study, the consumer can reduce primary energy consumption by 70 percent by not tumble-drying. It is also important to simply wash less. The study concluded that by halving the amount of times you wash your t-shirt increases the life of the t-shirt by 50%.

If you want to reduce your impact, wear your t-shirt more than once before washing it and limit your use of your clothes dryer. Eric Henry, president of TS Designs said, “We are making a sustainable product, but the consumer in the long run has the greatest influence on the impact to the environment on how they care and dispose of it.”

To read the full report, click here.

TS Designs is proud to invite you to the 1st Annual Piedmont Green Gala, an event organized to promote sustainable communities.  It will be held on October 4th from 8am to 6pm.
The focus of the event is to display methods and products that offer a low environmental footprint, including demonstrations of biofuels and wind and [...]