We print on American Apparel 100% organic cotton sustainable edition.
Organic cotton is free of pesticides, insecticides, and finishing chemicals. Its better for the environment, and healthier for producers and wearers. It also feels really good.
For every one pound of cotton grown, around 1/3 of a pound of pesticides are released into the envrionment. These remain on the clothing, but they also enter the food-stream. The seeds from these cotton plants are processed into cottonseed oils which are used in many prepared and packaged foods.
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We print on t-shirts of all sizes (toddler to adult), tank-tops, baby-onesies. We are still waiting for American Apparel to come up with long-sleeve shirts in organic cotton.
We also want to print on skirts, pants, scarves, curtains ... and more. But we are still looking for the best quality base apparel.
If you have a favorite brand, item, or organic cotton that you think we should use, please tell us!
For that matter, if you have an idea, a request, a suggestion, or an opinion, we'd love to hear it.
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We hand-print our designs using the highest quality non-toxic inks. They are vibrant and long-lasting, but contain none of the hazardous materials in conventional screen-printing inks. This means our prints contains no PVCs, phthalates, solvents, heavy metals, and more.
Printing in-house also enables us to monitor and reduce waste and chemical-use in the printing-process. This is better for the cotton, for our customers, for us, and for the environment.
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Conventional t-shirt printing uses plastisol inks which frequently contain PVC's, pthalates, heavy metals among other harsh materials. These require strong chemicals for cleanup. Also, aerosol adhesives are usually used to hold t-shirts in place for printing.
By using non-toxic inks, we eliminate toxins, harsh chemicals, metals and carcinogens from the inking process. In place of aerosol glue, we found that we could use double sided tape on our platens to hold the shirts down for multiple prints.
We believe this is a safer and healthier way of printing, and that it makes more sense for organic cotton.