“The clay dying process is an important part of our sustainability story,” says Martin. “It eliminates an entire manufacturing step, along with the associated material and chemical inputs, as well as the byproduct.”

Earth Creations

Dig Deep

if you’re an Earth Creations customer, you’ve no doubt heard this story before. Back in 1996, after a summer thunderstorm, Joy Maples was out for a bike ride not far from her Alabama home. Not surprisingly, she ended up covered from head to toe with red clay mud. Years later, after years of washing, the clay remained in the t-shirt she had worn that day. Her then boyfriend (and now husband and business partner), Martin Ledvina, became intrigued by the colorfastness of the clay, and came up with the idea of dyeing t-shirts on a commercial scale.

Potentially a nice and novel environmentally friendly dying alternative, but really, how many clay-red t-shirts can one company sell? Turns out in the southeast United States, deposits of clay exist in a surprising array of colors, including varying shades of purple, red, and yellow. (Earth Creations also now uses a green clay that is imported from France.) Joy and Martin have crisscrossed the southeast, often on their mountain bikes, always with a bucket and shovel in the truck, in search of a deposit of clay with the next Earth Creations color.

The clay dying process isn’t particularly complicated. Initially it was actually done in a wooden bucket. Today they fill a vat with water, add clay, throw in a load of unbleached clothing, and stir for about an hour. Dry, fold, and package. The colorfastness is enhanced with a second natural ingredient, one Martin refers to as “an ancient Chinese secret.” Not a bad alternative to many traditionally toxic dying processes. “The clay dying process is an important part of our sustainability story,” says Martin. “It eliminates an entire manufacturing step, along with the associated material and chemical inputs, as well as the byproduct.”

“When we first started this company, our goal was to create a sustainable product and at the same time bring a little social consciousness to the apparel industry,” explains Joy.

For Earth Creations, that includes not only the earth friendly dying process and the use of sustainable natural fibers, but sourcing domestic cotton and making everything in the southeastern U.S.

“We source U.S. grown organic cotton yarn whenever we can,” says Martin. “We relate to those U.S. farmers that have a commitment to organic production. This is a bold step for them and we want to support those efforts if at all possible. As we have grown, it has become more difficult and challenging to source domestically, much less locally. But when the opportunity arises, we buy U.S. organic cotton. All of our organic fabric is knitted in the U.S., and most of our yarn is from the U.S. So from fiber to yarn, and fabric to sewing, if we can, it’s done in the U.S.”

“A couple of years ago,” Joy continues, “it became clear that if we were going to stay in the apparel business and not go overseas, we were going to have to own our own sewing facility.”

The southeast is littered with the remnants of a once thriving textile industry, and much of the infrastructure is still intact. So last year Earth Creations purchased a sewing facility in the tiny town of Moulton, about 75 miles north of their company headquarters in Birmingham.

“There’s a lot of talk about ‘fair trade’ and ‘fair labor’, and we are obviously supportive of that. But what about companies like ours who are creating jobs here in the U.S.?” 

All of the facility’s twelve fulltime employees are women who had been displaced when the companies they worked for took their production overseas. Some had not worked for several years. They didn’t want to leave Moulton, and they obviously had the skills.

Earth Creations has long since expanded beyond their roots as a t-shirt company to offer a complete line of women’s apparel. Fabrics now include not only cotton, but hemp, hemp/cotton blends, and linen. All cotton on the apparel side is organic, while approximately half of the cotton on the t-shirt side is still conventionally grown. The plan is for all Earth Creations remaining conventionally grown cotton to be transitioned to organic by 2006. 

On the screen printing side, Earth Creations currently uses plastisol inks, although they are actively looking for a viable alternative. They have explored water-based inks, but were deterred because formaldehyde is released during the drying process. They are currently experimenting with a non-PVC ink in a portion of their line.

“We’re working towards a combination of sustainable fiber, sustainable dye, and sustainable printing ink,” Martin says. (If you visit the Earth Creations booth, Martin’s the guy with the southern tinged Czech accent.) 

Like many others in the outdoor industry, Joy and Martin have successfully parlayed their love for the outdoors into a business. They are enthused about the emerging emphasis on issues of sustainability in the outdoor industry. “As an industry, the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts,” says Martin. “We all need to strive together toward sustainability within our organizations. We all need to work together to educate our employees, our retailers, and the end consumer.” 

(For more information on Earth Creations, go to www.earthcreations.net. National Sales Manager Martha Hunter can be reached by phone at 800/792-9868, ext. 101, or by e-mail at mhunter@earthcreations.net.)

High Cotton?

According to the Organic Trade Association, while overall U.S. sales of organic fiber finished products (predominantly made from organic cotton) grew 23 percent in 2003, the number of U.S. acres planted to organic cotton declined by 55 percent during the same period.

Many of the companies that drove the initial demand for organic cotton have taken their business overseas in search of better margins. Since national organic standards were implemented, zero farmers have increased their acreage devoted to organic production.

It takes roughly a third of a pound of pesticides to grow the cotton required to make one t-shirt. Cotton is the second most heavily sprayed crop in the world (behind coffee). According to the Patagonia website, conventional cotton crops in six California counties alone are dusted every year with 57 million pounds of chemicals. This is especially alarming since the number of acres in California planted to organic cotton has declined to practically nothing.

CONTACT US