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.

Want to see your design on a TS Designs shirt? Now you can! We are having a T-shirt design contest. There will be 3 winners, 1 for each of our different brands (tsdOrganic, tsdRecycled, or tsdCarolinas). The prize is $100 and your design on shirts all over the country. The deadline is Feb. 28.

Click here to find out more.

In an effort to help our customers differentiate Cotton of the Carolinas products from conventional shirts, we have created marketing materials for retailers selling CotC shirts. If you sell or distribute Cotton of the Carolinas shirts, please click on the links to download these materials and use them as you see fit.

This is a 8.5×11 sheet that profiles Ronnie, our cotton farmer.

This is a 1/3 page pamphlet that shows people how to track their shirt that can be cut into 3 pamphlets per page.

Great Outdoor Provisions, a Raleigh-based outdoor clothing and equipment retailer and long-time sustainability partner of TS Designs, is now offering Cotton of the Carolinas t-shirts in all of their retail outlets. To see GOP’s own blog post about this exciting new offering, click here.

If you’re in the area, drop by one of Great Outdoor’s several NC locations and pick up a 100% local t-shirt today!

TSD is proud to announce it will soon be offering the GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certified econscious value T alongside our other sustainable t-shirt offerings.

The GOTS certification verifies the value t’s 100% organic cotton content and its compliance with fair labor standards.

Today TS Designs officially announced Cotton of the Carolinas, an innovative new program that will grow, make, and sell t-shirts in the Carolinas, during the first CotC Stakeholder Meeting.

The meeting was a great success, thanks to the stakeholders, press, and interested parties involved.

Check out the following links for more info:
Press Release
White Paper

The Burlington Times News covers the production of t-shirts for the historical presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.  See the full article here.
NOTE: There is a misquote in the article.  Shannon Clark, our production manager, is quoted as saying “This is a lot faster than normal. Thirty days is pushing it for us.”  Hist actual words [...]

After a lengthy review and testing process, TS Designs is now Oeko-Tex 100 Certified!  The Hohenstein Institute, creators of the Oeko-Tex 100 Standard, reviewed and verified our supply chain, printing and dyeing processes, and final product to ensure that our shirts are in 100% compliance with their criteria.
Below is a copy of our Oeko-Tex 100 [...]