Tag Archives: ethical business practices
Show us Your Piece x Piece
Piece x Piece and Mc Calls patterns have recently collaborated for their new Generation Next campaign featuring up and coming designers. You can now make your very own Division Tunic at home with all your leftover bits and pieces! We would love to see what you all come up with, so please post your own pics of your Division Tunic on our Facebook page. And be sure to check out the article written by Eco Salon.
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2012 Resolve: Do Your Part!
As the years pass, the population grows and our Earth becomes more fragile and susceptible to change. Our impact on the environment has become exceedingly clear as we begin to feel the affects of global warming and climate change. We are each responsible for doing our share and here at Piece x Piece we thought we would help by sharing a few tips and ideas on some quick and easy ways you can help in your daily life.
Recycle Right
Recycling seems like the easiest way to help reduce our waste, right? Well, it absolutely blows our minds that its not mandatory! There are many citizens trying their best to recycle and with so many different rules on what’s acceptable to fill your blue bin with its easy to get it wrong. Throw in SF’s new green composting bin and you could be set for a headache. It’s important to get it right and be informed on how to recycle right in order to make sure that what you’re doing to help is actually helping. Visit the link to Recology SF to find out more on what really goes into those black, blue and green bins. And don’t forget E-waste too! All your unwanted electronics and broken gadgets definitely don’t belong in the trash (especially not the landfill). Your tax deductible E-waste donation can easily be picked up at your front door for free! Visit the link here for more details.
Choose a DIY Project
DIY projects are a fun and easy way to get creative and re-use items that no longer serve a purpose for you. If you have kids get them involved too and spend the weekend transforming unwanted knick knacks into handmade treasures. Some of our favorite DIY projects and ideas come from blogs like Unconsumption. Seen above, a super-cute idea for a new dog bed made from a vintage suitcase, metal funnels transformed into unique candle holders and your standard mason jars make bathroom organization easy. Surf the DIY blogs and get inspired for more do-it-yourself fun!
Re-use it or Lose-it
Everything should have more than one purpose in its lifetime. From a grocery bag, to a jar of spaghetti sauce, to an old bath towel, finding a second or third reason to put an item to use can not only save you time but also a whole lot of cash. If you haven’t already hopped on the band wagon and bought yourself some reusable cloth grocery bags see to it that your paper or plastic ones go a long way before they’re tossed away. Use them to bring your lunch, sort recyclables or pick up after your pooch. A standard grocery bag is built to last not just to be trashed!
Tupperware parties are a thing of the past. Why spend money on food storage when so much of your food comes with built-in reusable containers. Simply take all the containers and jars you buy filled with your pasta sauce, salsa and jams and reuse them as to-go containers for your lunch and your leftovers. You’ll never spend a buck on plastic Tupperware again!
Finally, when you’re due for a new set of linens find reasons to re-use and save the old ones. Why bother spending your cash on rags to scrub your tub or floors with? Old bath towels make great rags to clean your house with when you cut them up. Or leave one in the trunk of your car for that day you spill coffee or your dog gets soaked at the beach!
Whatever it is that you choose to do, to re-use and lessen your impact on our Earth helps! There is no feat too small to be recognized. Please feel free to share any of your at-home re-use ideas!
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” – New England proverb
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Giving Back This Holiday Season
It’s obviously important to us here at Piece x Piece to conserve, re-use, re-purpose and give back to our community, essentially lessening our impact on Mother Earth whenever possible. It’s not always the easiest route to take but it sure does feel good. During the Holidays its especially important to not only be grateful for everything we have but to also pay it forward and extend an arm to those who may be less fortunate.
One of our favorite ways to give back is to give the gift of animals, and we don’t mean puppies and kittens. Heifer International is a perfect organization to give the gift that keeps on giving. Heifer’s basic goal is to end world hunger & poverty by giving families a hand-up, not just a hand-out. Gifts of livestock and training, help families improve their nutrition and generate income in sustainable ways. They refer to the animals as “living loans” because in exchange for their livestock and training, families agree to give one of its animal’s offspring to another family in need. It’s called Passing on the Gift – a cornerstone of the Heifer mission that creates an ever-expanding network of hope and peace. If you would like to contribute in a meaningful way this Holiday season that will not only impact one family but many others, Heifer would be the way to go.
Visit Hefer International to find out more.
Secret Santa’s are popping up everywhere. With the season for giving at hand we are seeing more generosity than any other time of year. In a recent interview with a Nebraska Kmart Store Manager, “Dozens of Kmart customers across the country have had their layaways paid off by strangers…buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn’t afford, especially toys and children’s clothes set aside by impoverished parents.” A trend that has sparked across the country with many retailers offering layaway services and more and more families living beyond their means. It feels good to do something great for someone else.
If you always have a hot plate of food for dinner, it may be hard to imagine how many adults and children go without. In San Francisco, more than 150,000 people struggle each day to feed themselves and their families. Giving to your local food bank could be the easiest and most important giving you could do this Holiday Season. The San Francisco Food Bank will distribute approximately 40 million pounds of food and fresh produce this year to families in need. For a list of locations to drop off canned goods and other foods visit the SF Food Bank website. Or, simply text FEED to 80077 to donate $10 to Bay Area Foods Banks courtesy of ABC 7′s 20th Annual Holiday Food Drive.
Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves. ~Eric Sevareid
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PxP Spring 2012 Intern Search
Piece x Piece has a seasonal student internship position available. Starting in January and lasting approximately 3 months, for 1-3 days/week.
Internship duties include: assisting in design (apparel and accessory), patternmaking, muslin sewing, organization, and assisting with press, sales and production. Also, Internet marketing, blogging, posting updates to Facebook and Twitter.
We are looking for someone with strong communication skills who takes direction well. You must have a positive demeanor, be proactive, punctual, attentive to detail and well organized. Please apply if you have knowledge in patternmaking and garment construction. Knitwear knowledge or previous experience with Internet Marketing is a plus.
The Piece x Piece internship program offers school credit only. Students with Junior or Senior status preferred. Please include a cover letter and resume, also note your upcoming Spring availability.
All inquiries should be directed to: michaela@pxp-sf.com
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Textile Recycling at its Best
“It takes 700 gallons of water to grow the cotton to produce just one T-shirt.” -USAGAIN
Textile recycling is thankfully a growing business headed by companies committed to lowering the mass quantities of garments thrown away each year. With proper reuse and redistribution of unwanted garments not only do we help others by providing them with affordable and clean clothing, but we also help ourselves by slowing the rate of garbage ending up in landfills.
Textile recycling can mean either the collection of garments for redistribution, or it means that the goods collected will actually be broken down into new materials. Either way hundreds of thousands of tons of unwanted garments stay out of landfills every year.
BCR Global Textiles is a large scale textile recycling company that takes quality donations and redistributes them to other countries. People are encouraged to use the donation banks set up, where garments, shoes and bras are collected and sorted on a massive scale. BCR not only creates jobs itself but also creates jobs for the businesses who sell the recycled garments abroad and thus provides inexpensive clothes for third world countries throughout the globe. Here is an amazing video that takes a closer look at the entire process:
Founded in 1948, The Bureau of International Recycling pioneered the interests of the recycling industry on an international scale. During the sorting process items are classified as wearable and sent to be sold secondhand or as unwearable and sold to the ‘flocking’ industry for shredding and re-spinning into new fabric and yarn. Textile materials are shredded or pulled into fibers and the yard is re-spun ready for later weaving or knitting. Of all collected textiles, approximately 50% are reused and 50% are recycled.
Patagonia has been using fabrics made from recycled fibers for years, they have now teamed up with eBay to launch a trend to resell used Patagonia items online. As firm believers in the notion that we shouldn’t buy more of what we don’t need, Patagonia is encouraging it’s customers to resell their used items to help complete the circle. Way to go Patagonia!
Dress for Success may be one of the more recognizable names in the not-for-profit and textile recycling world. They have been around since 1997 and have helped more than 550,000 women around the world to find work and become financially independent. Offering services designed to help women not only find jobs by giving them clean appropriate work work attire, but to also remain employed.
So whether you are contributing to large scale textile recycling company, donating to the Goodwill or selling your unwanted jeans to Crossroads or Buffalo Exchange make sure you are part of the solution and not the problem. We aren’t guaranteed to have this Earth forever and if we aren’t careful we will continue to see serious and rapid decline of our oceans, forests and even the neighborhoods around us. Let’s not take our beautiful Earth for granted!
“50% of textile waste is not biodegradable” -Fashion and Earth
More links on ways you can help and where to donate:
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