look at this side-by-side photo of these two tees which is better which had less
of an impact on the environment one way to gauge the impact of a garment is to
look at where it's made different countries have different factory
standards when it comes to working conditions environmental regulation and
Quality Assurance our goal has always been to manufacture the best garments
possible in a socially and environmentally responsible way Abela
canvas we are all about transparency so we want to educate you on exactly how
and where our shirts are made in this final episode of our us first M series
have you subscribed to our channel yet if not hit that button now it's no
secret that Asia is the textile manufacturing capital of the world with
China manufacturing approximately half of the world's clothing and textiles but
it's come at a cost countries with cheap labor and low
regulation are the biggest offenders when it comes to the environment and
human rights several years ago bela canvas made the decision to
centralize our production for a us a strong model which has allowed us to
create thousands of US jobs what this means is we source the best long staple
cotton from all over the world and then die and cut everything in Los Angeles
it's thin sewn in our la sewing factory or in Central America making the
decision to die and cut everything in Los Angeles was a necessary one for us
in order to ensure we meet the highest level of ethical standards
now let's jump back to that industry T how do you make a t-shirt so cheap
beyond cheap labor you need cheap electricity cheap steam and cheap
treatment of waste water let's start with cheap electricity many factories in
both Central America and Asia use petroleum coke one of the dirtiest
fossil fuels on the planet which emits 11 percent more greenhouse gas than coal
along with lung damaging sulfur almost all US cities including la bande
petrocoke but this is what's used to power many of the dye houses outside of
the US now let's talk about cheap steam steam boilers at the precise amount of
heat and moisture needed to transfer the dye to the fabric making the dyeing
process possible so how do you power these steam boilers the industry uses
biomass this means cane sugar African palm oil waste or trees are burned to
create steam causing deforestation along the way AB Bella canvas we do not use
this type of energy and that makes a big difference when it comes to being
environmentally friendly we get our steam through an energy exchange within
our dyeing and drying process first we collect the air from the dryers and pipe
it into a thermal oxidizer next the oils from the dyes that are remaining in the
air are burned to create energy that energy is then captured by a boiler that
creates steam and finally the steam is used to heat
the dyeing machine you can't get much greener than that the final thing to
consider when dyeing fabric is that whole issue of wastewater it takes a
significant hardware investment to properly treat wastewater an investment
that's not necessarily going to come with the price tag of a 1 or $2 t-shirt
so one common way manufacturers treat wastewater is through desalination and
circulation ponds wastewater is dumped into these shallow ponds which extend
over hundreds of acres and allow the bacteria to eat the chemicals as the
wastewater moves through these ponds this of course disrupts the surrounding
ecosystem and the wildlife in that region is affected on the flip side Fela
canvas set out to reduce our footprint in two ways first by using as little
water as possible the die machines we use are extremely efficient using seven
times less water than the industry average and saving 24 million gallons of
water per week the little waste water we do generate goes to a state of the art
water reclamation plan in LA the California Environmental Protection
Agency or EPA is the strictest in the world it's thanks to the EPA's high
level of oversight and regulation that we're able to ensure that no harmful
chemicals are being released back into our ecosystem dye houses and treatment
plants like the ones we use in LA largely do not exist in Central America
or China where many of the big manufacturers dye their fabric so the
next time you're deciding between two T's do a little research and find out
how and where they're made in this modern era of corporate transparency you
should be able to find out where company manufactures our USA strong production
is just another thing that separates us from them
if you missed any episodes of our us-versus-them series check out the
playlist where you can watch all five episodes and don't forget to subscribe
to the BELLA+CANVAS youtube channel for more videos like this Be Different