This staff post is by Timothy Evans. He has worked for Transprint for eight months in our IT department. In a former life, Tim has also worked as a graphic designer. In addition to his work in our New York office, being a husband, and father, he attended the Parsons School of Design.

My 8-year-old daughter, Maritai, came home from school a few weeks ago and, as usual, I asked her what she had learned that day. Turns out, it was a lesson on the values of the “Three R’s.” But not the ones you’d expect. Maritai was talking about Reduce – Reuse – Recycle.

The lesson showed the kids that there are many simple things one can do to make the earth a better place for the future. Maritai reminded me that using something once and tossing it into the trash is a wasteful habit. Maritai told me, “We are the stewards of our planet.” Sounds like the lesson certainly caught her attention.

Of course, this wasn’t news for Maritai. At home, we teach our children about the importance of recycling. For example, the entire family diligently separates out paper, plastic, and aluminum for trash day.

But, it dawned on me that I should take this issue more seriously, especially when the lesson comes from an 8-year old who will one day inherit this planet. Not to mention, it’s important that, as a parent, I give my children and others the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of our wonderful world.

After our chat, I had an idea for a project to really bring the “Three Rs” home for our children.

old chairs become re-new chairs

The problem was that my kids have several old, dirty chairs that we were thinking about replacing. But that wouldn’t due, not now. We weren’t going to toss these in the trash and buy new ones. Instead we’ll reduce landfill by reusing the old chairs and recycling a few yards of sample fabric from the Transprint office.

As you can imagine, the Design Studio in New York creates quite a lot of samples. We have fabrics of all types with beautiful designs. But, they do go out of fashion but still serve a purpose.

I brought home a few choices and working with my kids, I allowed them to choose a pattern they liked and we began to reupholster the chairs. It didn’t take that long, and they looked great. Not to mention, we embraced the Three R’s concept.

Fortunately, I work for a company that is also committed to sustainability. The entire team is dedicated to conserving water by encouraging the textile industry to use AirDye technology, which also saves energy, reduces pollutants, lowers cost, and promotes strict global environmental standards while producing beautiful textile products. I’m happy to be a part of the solution, and my kids love their “re-new” chairs.

Earlier this month we gave you a few gift ideas for the treehugger in your family. One of the suggestions was a rain barrel to capture and recycle water for landscaping or even indoor use.

Well, turns out quite a few people are getting into rain harvesting. KQED’s Quest had a great piece on the radio today on how it’s working for a few communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. We thought you might like to hear the story and read the reporter’s notes which includes links to site that can show you how to set up a rain capture system of your own.

One interesting bit, it’s illegal in some communities to disconnect your downspout from the sewer system. So, be sure to check on your local building codes before setting up your system.

What do you think about harvesting your rainwater? Is it worth the effort and cost?

photo credit: thanh.ha.dang / flickr

Our Friends over at DMD Green have created a new sustainability program called SocialCycling. The goal is to bring transparency and verification to the recycling process. The program is designed to encourage businesses to partner with organizations to reuse items that are not usually, or easily recycled.

One example, sited in this interview with Jason Warnock and Stacy Richter of DMD Green, is of an American company sending PVC scrap to Africa. Instead of ending up in a dump, the PVC is made into back pack linings. As Warnock says:

What we have done is solve a business problem for a US manufacturer, an African producer and hopefully, even helped some actual people along the way. To me that is the truly exciting part of environmental sustainability.

Just imagine what could happen if more organizations started to look at their waste as a resource; and if manufacturers looked at waste as a raw material. Seems to us that this is the ultimate in environmental sustainability: never drawing from “virgin” materials to create the products we need and want.

Here’s the question, what waste products does your company create that need to be SocialCycled? Perhaps we can spark a new partnership right here on Good for Water!

As we were checking out this morning’s blog posts, we saw this over at Treehugger: The US Consumes 1500 Plastic Water Bottles Every Second, a fact by Watershed.

We knew American’s were a plastic-loving bunch, but this number really struck home. Not only for its excess, but for the opportunity all those plastic bottles represent. Unfortunately, the sad fact is that only about 20 percent of those bottles make their way into the recycling bin.

In this economy, just think of the new jobs could be created if  we focused on this “resource.” Here’s a sample of what we can make by recycling those 47,335,389,000 plastic bottles used each year:

Clearly, we need to significantly reduce our use of plastic bottles. But there are already billions and billions of them in our landfills. Realistically, we’re not going to end our addition cold turkey either. We’d like to see more businesses use recycled plastic, especially for clothing and carpet.

What would you do with all those discarded plastic water bottles?

More and more broadly available, recycled PET is a growing trend in eco-friendly fabrics. We’re taking a look at the process and advantages of recycled plastic fiber.

Read part 1: how plastic trash becomes fabric

landfill to retail

Once a drink bottle is collected, it is sent off to a processing facility. There, the bottle is cut into small pieces called flake and then washed. PET flake is then melted into a liquid and shaped into a long, thin fiber. These fibers are spun into yarn in the same manner as materials such as cotton, wool, and other natural products. These yarns are now 100 percent recycled polyester.

By using recycled plastic instead of new petroleum, over 60 percent of the energy is saved without any additional harm to the environment. No other fiber is produced with less impact.

Recycled polyester can also help the environment through the use of AirDye® technology. This process uses no water and much less energy to add color and designs to the fabric. Conventional dye and printing methods pollute over 15 gallons of water for a simple t-shirt in addition to introducing a number of hazardous chemicals and by-products into the environment. AirDye technology makes a great looking product without all those problems and the color lasts as long as the garment.

Manufacturers of apparel and other products are beginning to look at recycled polyester as not just the best alternative to natural fibers, but a better choice. This material is available, easy to work with, affordable, and provides consumers with the better environmental product.

Better for the Planet and Better for You

Another area where recycled polyester can help make a positive change is in the use and care of a garment made from it. A cotton shirt holds water. A lot of it. And if you are wearing it during a workout or caught in the rain, you know what we’re talking about. Polyester sheds the water. This is makes it more comfortable to wear. But consider what happens in the wash. A shirt that holds less water is easier to clean and dry. It takes less than half the energy and water to wash a shirt made from polyester as it does one made of cotton.

Polyester is also tougher than cotton. A polyester shirt lasts longer; up to five times longer. A longer life means buying fewer shirts, which means less resources consumed. Not to mention the money you save.

Lastly, what do you do with your shirt when you can no longer use it? The first and most obvious choice is to pass it on to someone who can. So, a shirt that lasts longer is even more important. But, what then? The ability to recycle that same shirt into yet more RPET and recycled polyester and back into a new garment is key. No products going to landfill.

How many times can a product come back again and again? We honestly don’t know–generations, at the very least. This brings new meaning to the term “hand me down.”

Recycled Polyester and You

Each shirt, bedspread, or handbag we make is one less made from the earth’s very limited resources. We know that not everything a person buys can be made from recycled trash. But for those products that can be, and that not only work as well, but even better; it seems obvious to us what to do. And we think that many of you agree with us.