Tag: environmental stewardship

apparel design, Economic equity, Entrepreneur, sewing contractor, social enterprise, sustainable manufacturing

United Sewing and Design 2019 Social Enterprise Report

United Sewing and DesignEach year in CT, social enterprises are required to report their progress toward fulfilling their social impact goals for the previous year. (Click on 2018 last year’s report to see how far we’ve come.) This post is the United Sewing and Design report for 2019 about our progress toward meeting our business goals which are:

  • hiring individuals who have barriers to getting and keeping well-paid employment and,
  • diverting materials from the waste stream into our business and preventing materials from our manufacturing processes from entering the waste stream

Goal 1:  Hiring individuals who have barriers to getting and keeping well-paid employment

This year we began to focus on adding formerly incarcerated individuals to our pool of collaborators. We connected directly with the Department of Corrections Correctional Enterprises of Connecticut system that manages commercial enterprises within the Osborn Correctional Institution in Enfield, CT and the York Correctional facility in Niantic. The apparel manufacturing facility at Enfield includes a very well developed system of managing inventory, workflow and output. It includes patterning, plotting, automated cutting, sewing, packaging and shipping. Inmates are also employed in a computerized embroidery shop with the capacity to digitize patterns and render them on patches, apparel and hats. The female inmates at York sew mostly flat goods including sheets, towels and laundry bags using a variety of equipment. These activities greatly enhance the capabilities of the individuals making them highly skilled candidates for employment once they transition into society. Read my blog post about why you should employ formerly incarcerated folks here.

In 2019 our pay to independent contractors M.I. in Middlesex County and J.T. in Hartford County increased by 49% over 2018. Our work at the moment is mostly developing, prototyping and manufacturing small runs of patented products for individual designers including pet products, sporting gear and apparel. These designers also include an exciting group of inspired, urban designers in the Hartford area. We are actively involved in growing a vertically integrated apparel industry in CT along with groups such as Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Our efforts also include creating connections between designers, producers of textiles, trims and yarn and providers of services such as knitting, dyeing and embroidery in the region.

Read More!

Ethical Consuming, Made in America

Five Reasons Why You Should Use Latex Foam

Nancy and Dick Coffey of KTT Enterprises look forward to helping you pick the right Talalay foam for your project.
Nancy and Dick Coffey of KTT Enterprises

Sometimes, you find a product that revolutionizes the way you think about your life. At KTT Enterprises, in Hamden, CT, I found such a product–natural latex foam. If you’re not using natural latex in your own home or in the products you manufacture, here’s five reasons why you need to do so.

I’ll introduce you to the friendly and knowledgeable folks at KTT first. Nancy and Dick Coffey helped me chose the right foam for my customer’s bedding project from among the many types of Talalay latex they stock. All of their foam is made in the U.S.A.. Latex foam is a naturally based rubber material made out of liquid harvested from the Havea brasiliensis tree. These rubber trees have a 25 year productive life.  Nancy, Dick and their employees will cut and modify the latex foam they stock to your specifications. In addition to the sheet foam I purchased, they specialize in making cosmetic “puffs” and packing foam for items such as cameras.  They also make “cricket donuts”, which are foam rings made to help keep crickets alive while they’re being shipped to your favorite pet lizard. Who knew…..

Five Reasons Why You Need Talalay Latex Foam

  •  Latex foam doesn’t give off harmful gasses into your household environment, unlike other foams, including some memory foam. All Talalay Latex products are certified OEKO-TEX Class 100; the healthiest classification in the leading global testing and certification process. This certification ensures textile materials and home furnishing products do not contain harmful substances or pose a health risk to consumers.

  • Talalay latex is made in Shelton, CT with an all natural, renewable resource produced by trees that are helping remove CO2 from our environment.

read more!

Ethical Consuming, manufacturing, sewn manufacturing

Get Off the Over-consumption Truck!

trusted clothes post
Photo by Yuriy Trubitsyn on Unsplash

Ever bought a shirt or blouse that you wore once then never again? Perhaps you just plucked it off the rack in that trendy store you like without even really thinking about when, where or how often you’d wear it? Maybe you even bought the same item in 3 colors! Did you take a minute to think about whether or not purchasing something you really weren’t going to use is a good idea? How about what impact your purchase would have on the fashion industry, the environment or the people who made the shirt?

One of the purposes of my blog at unitedsewinganddesign.com, is to present different ways of thinking about consuming and manufacturing soft goods, ways that have less negative impact on our environment, that are sustainable both environmentally and economically and that are fair to workers. Often, when I mention the fine points of conscious manufacturing to fashion professionals, they roll their eyes and sigh or wonder aloud how they are supposed to compete in an industry fueled by constant consumption of trendy clothes and accessories if they don’t take part in the same overproduction/overconsumption cycle.

On Twitter last week, I ran across a post by one of the most insightful organizations that I follow.

Find out more!

Ethical Consuming, manufacturing, sewn manufacturing

Closing Your Consumption Circle–Three Paths That Will Benefit Your Business

We all know that being a business owner is beyond time consuming. Making decisions to move your business forward, managing people, looking for customers, “can I please have an extra day in the week to do all this”? Why would you possibly want to burden yourself or your staff with finding a way to close the consumption circle at your business? What are the benefits?

Think about how your business consumes.
Photo by Sharon Pittaway on Unsplash

First, let’s define some terms as they relate to manufacturing.

Waste—materials that you have left over from manufacturing.

Upcycle— reuse (discarded objects or material) in such a way as to create a product of a higher quality or value than the original. Ex: turning moth eaten, cashmere sweaters into a coat by cutting and recombining them.

Repurposed—using something for a different purpose than that for which it was intended, altering it superficially in the process. Ex: creating pillows from the leather of a used couch.

Recycled— convert (waste) into reusable material, breaking it down and altering its form during the process. Ex: shredding discarded textiles to produce stuffing for quilted boots.

Closing the consumption circle means taking all of the materials that are not used in the products you manufacture, (the waste), and either up-cycling, re-purposing or recycling it so that nothing ends up in the waste stream on its way to a landfill.

Here are three ways to close the consumption circle at your business and some of the benefits each method offers.

Find out more!