Happy True Cost Tuesday, where we unpack some of the reasons behind why we at Yobel only provide fair trade, ethical, and sustainable clothing and accessories. This is our fifth volume and you can read previous volumes here. Today I’ll be talking more about sustainability in fashion, specifically denim.
As I mentioned last week, there are multiple ways to be sustainable but environmental harm is the core of why many companies are thinking through this concept. From energy use, product and water waste and chemicals, there are companies in the fashion industry making big changes to improve the impact on our planet.
Denim is in all our closets! It’s my favorite clothing as I’m sure it is for many of you too. It’s easy to wear, works to dress up and works to mow the lawn in. It’s so versatile and it lasts a long time. Denim comes from cotton. Cotton itself is a thirsty plant which is the main issue with the production of this favored product, water waste. In traditional denim manufacturing, approximately 2,000 gallons of water are used to create one pair of jeans! Our denim company partners use about 10 gallons or less to create one pair of their jeans. We love their innovative processes. They will recycle their own factory’s water, not rinse at every step of the way and even use technology to distress the fabric rather than more water. This also ends up saving energy which is yet another win. One of our companies saves over 400 hours of energy per pair!
The next issue with traditional denim manufacturing are chemicals. Main ingredients for denim manufacturing are extremely dangerous. These chemicals pollute the factory water which can seep into the soil around the factory and cause many more problems. Again, our denim partner companies have innovative ways around this too! One of the companies uses state of the art lasers to distress the fabric that have zero pollution. And in all our denim, they use natural dyes which is key for the planet as well.
It’s so awesome to get to share the amazing work our denim partner companies are doing that contribute to the wellbeing of people and our planet! Why aren't more companies being innovative like this? Not to worry, you can find ethical and sustainable men's and women's denim at Yobel. Let’s try not to have thousands of gallons of water represented in our closets, just from our denim.