In Part 1 of our two-part series on how to make your decorated-apparel business more sustainable, we looked at four great ideas for how you and your shop can cut down on everything from solid waste to overall wastage and energy usage. In Part 2 we’ll take a look at six more ideas, making it an even 10.
Again, as sustainability becomes a bigger part of the way the decorated-apparel industry does business it’s becoming increasingly apparent there’s no single “magic bullet” to cleaning up a shop’s act. That doesn’t mean, though, you shouldn’t try. On the contrary, all it means is doing so requires a little more forethought and planning. On the plus side, the resulting gains won’t just be good for the planet, but your bottom line as well.
1) Assess Your Packaging
If anything has become a hallmark of today’s economy it’s the amount of packaging people use, both at work and at home. The good news is it would be hard to think of an easier way of making big gains than by reducing the amount of packaging your company goes through.
At the embroidery company Only Stitches, for example, owner Jaime Ann Carnes says she reuses 100 percent of the boxes and packing materials she receives. “We encourage our customers to then reuse the boxes we send their finished products in,” Carnes says.
If anything has become emblematic of today’s world, it’s the amount of packaging we all go through. Photo by Quality Stock Arts – stock.adobe.com
Similarly, Lisa Lemonick, owner of New Jersey-based Scrappy Dappy Doo, not only reuses the boxes she receives from her suppliers to ship goods to her customers, she also does her best to donate any extra boxes she ends up with to people who are moving. “We even shred our sublimation blowout paper and transfer paper for second-life package filler,” Lemonick says of her company’s efforts to reduce its contributions to the waste stream.
As for Liz Hennings, owner of Fast Track Products, she says her team went straight to the source, as it were. Not only did they note the way many of their suppliers were using excessive amounts of packaging, they did something about it.
“We wanted to decrease the amount of packaging that goes into a landfill, so we searched out sources where we can recycle most of the packaging,” she says.
In terms of the best way to start implementing these kinds of strategies, Marshall Atkinson, principal of Atkinson Consulting and Shirt Lab, suggests doing a survey of the amount and kinds of packaging your company is currently going through. Are you reusing the boxes your blanks come in when you ship out decorated goods? Are you shredding your embroidery backing or blowout paper for your package filler, that or opting for brown craft paper as opposed to plastic packaging? Are you choosing biodegradable mailers and/or shipping items in right-sized boxes, as opposed to, say, packing a couple of T-shirts in a box big enough for a complete wardrobe?
2) Assess Your Processes
It goes without saying that no matter what kind of decorating your company does, you will go through your share of consumables. Ink, thread, films, backings, cleaning supplies, you name it. This in turn opens the door to yet more big gains for this looking to minimize their environmental footprint.
By way of example, Brayden Jessen, owner Zome Design says his team is currently in the process of taking a close look at the numbers in his shop’s screen reclaim department to see if it makes sense to invest in an automated screen reclamation system—a substantial investment of $60,000 to $80,000, but an investment offering a wealth of possibilities. Jessen says he and his colleagues also make a point of using Earth-friendly supplies like Madeira’s 100-percent recycled Polyneon Green thread line and water-based screen-printing inks that don’t require harsh chemicals as part of their cleanup.
Speaking of ink, when it comes to choosing between water-based and conventional inks, it’s important to take a look at the entire decorating process as opposed to the ink alone. Water-based inks, for example, while touted for their environmental friendliness due to their water content, come with a shorter shelf life and require immediate use. They also require added time and energy in the drying process. Conventional inks, on the other hand, though derived from petroleum, offer a longer shelf life, can be reused and are more energy-efficient during curing. Despite their perceived sustainability, water-based inks may also contain formaldehyde.
Another out-of-the-box means of reducing the environmental costs of a company’s screen-printing operations is to forego screen printing completely. Carnes and Lemonick, for example, say one of the reasons they elected to add direct-to-film (DTF) printing to their product offerings is the reduced cost and waste.
“In DTF printing, efficiency is paramount,” Victor Nanongkhai, marketing manager at Arcus Printers and Axiom America says. “Every drop of ink, every speck of powder serves a purpose, without wasting excess ink or cleaning chemicals. Unlike screen printing, which generates waste inks, cleaning chemicals and requires water for screen reclamation.”
As an added benefit, Nanongkhai says, DTF printing excels in production agility, offering a turnaround of less than five minutes from artwork to the finished product. Unlike other digital printing methods, like direct-to-garment (DTG), DTF ink also works equally well on a wide range of materials, including cotton, polyester, spandex, leather and pleather, and allows for unlimited colors without extensive prepress work.
Finally, in the even you are a screen printer, have you added a water-filtration system to your washout booth to filter out any harmful chemicals you may be using? Failing to do so not only sends harmful compounds, like inks, oils and photo polymers, directly into your local waterway, it can also damage your pipes, leading to costly repairs.
With this in mind, Jessen says at Zome he and his team have not only had a specially designed drainage trap installed in their screen reclaim room, they are looking to make things even better.
“We’re analyzing our current sludge trap system to look for minor improvements we can make to the system, which was installed over a decade ago,” Jessen says. “It’s a pretty nasty process, so our team is looking into new filtration systems that may be better for the environment and our team’s work environment, too.”
3) Switch to On-Demand Printing
In the past, many print and embroidery shops would decorate hundreds or even thousands of garments in advance, which they would then store and sell
Among the other advantages of using heat transfers is the fact they generate minimal waste. Photo by New Africa – stock.adobe.com
as required. This in turn led to countless unsold products ending up in the dump or recycled, at best. By contrast, these days the combination of online stores, customization options and digital printing gives shops much better control over both their inventory and cash flow.
“Digital printing technologies have enabled us to offer on-demand production so that we don’t have to inventory vast quantities of merchandise for clients that either just sit on shelves or have to be cleared out when the straggling sizes remain,” Jessen explains.
Additionally, the on-demand nature of DTF further minimizes waste by allowing a company to print only what’s going to be purchased immediately, eliminating the need for minimum orders and reducing machine setup waste, Nanongkhai says.
4) Do an Energy Audit
Another way of making big gains environmentally, Atkinson says, is contacting your local utility company for a free or low-cost energy audit. The rep who does the audit will not only review your utility bill, lighting, HVAC, windows, etc., but offer you a list of recommendations for how best to improve the situation—recommendations that can in turn often be implemented with the help of any number of different government grants or loans. Then, of course, there are the direct benefits or reduced energy bills.
By way of example, Atkinson notes how he once helped a shop have a $500 airline leak survey performed on a rooftop air compressor with a help of a $250 grant. Not only did the study reveal the presence of around 30 leaks, but with each leak repaired, the shop ended up saving approximately $600 in annual energy expenses, resulting in total savings of over $18,000 per year.
Similarly, when the team at Zome Design needed to replace around 80 light tubes in its factory they looked around to see if they could get some help. “When purchasing new equipment, we make an effort to see if there’s a more sustainable option out there,” Jessen says. “So we contacted our local energy supplier for any recommendations or available rebates.”
The result? They stumbled on a program that allowed Zome to not only replace each and every one of the lights in need of updating, but convert the shop’s entire lighting system to LED at zero expense.
“Not only did we receive free lights, we also save on energy costs,” Jessen says. “Our shop is now much brighter, and we can match colors more accurately. Having a sustainable-first mindset will save you money and improve not only your product quality, but also the quality of the job environment for your team.”
5) Become a Certified Sustainable Printer
Similar to an energy audit is Sustainable Green Printing Partnership certification (SGP) a third-party program configured specifically for the decorated apparel industry.
Make every day Earth Day, and the results may surprise you! Photo by Cavan for Adobe – stock.adobe.com. Art by Rawpixel.com – stock.adobe.com
“SGP certification sets the bar for each member to achieve the highest standards of sustainability and responsibility,” says Gary Jones, vice-president of environmental, health and safety affairs and the Printing United Alliance. “SGP helps members operate more responsibly and efficiently, source sustainable materials, reduce waste and create safer, healthier workplaces.”
Printers who’ve gone through the process say it takes about a year to complete, giving you and your staff sufficient time to implement those action items that make the most sense. As an added benefit, there’s nothing like SGP certification set help set your shop apart.
“Global brands recognize the fact that SGP-certified companies operate at a higher level, follow best practices and maintain greater standards,” Jones says of the program’s impact on a firm’s reputation.
He adds that while customers can “easily see through empty sustainability initiatives,” there’s nothing like a clear set of metrics to provide a clear understanding of a shop’s environmental impact.” In the case of SGP, he says, these metrics include carbon emissions, solid waste generation and recycling, water consumption, energy consumption, emissions of volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants, incorporation of recyclable substrates, using sustainable ink systems, employee injury and illness rates, and so on.
“Being able to explain what your shop has done and plans to do along with supporting metrics provides a powerful message to customers, employees and your community,” Jones says.
6) Make Every Day Earth Day
Last year, the blank apparel manufacturer Allmade, which prides itself on its commitment to sustainability, hosted an Earth Day competition for printers interested in featuring either their own shops or a customer. The slogan for the contest was “Every Day is Earth Day.” As fate would have it, the Zome Design team won with a video illustrating its ongoing sustainability efforts. The video also featured an assortment of Allmade Earth Day Allmade Tri-Blend Tees, made from organic cotton and recycled polyester, and decorated using water-based inks.
Again, at the end of the day there’s no magic bullet, no single answer to the problem of managing a company’s energy use or waste. What’s needed is an ongoing commitment to not only running your business better, but doing so in such a way the Earth as a whole benefits. “Instead of thinking of Earth Day as one day or one month, how can we practice sustainability every day?” Jessen says of this kind of approach. “If we try to improve just 1 percent every day, imagine where your shop will be in 365 days.”
So, what are you waiting for? What have you got to lose, besides a whole lot of wasted time, resources and effort?
Nicole Rollender is an award-winning writer, and heads up copywriting at the content-creation firm strandwritingservices.com. For more information or to comment on this article, email Nicole at [email protected]. For the first four of Nicole’s top 10 sustainability practices, be sure and check out the part one of this two-part series.
