At the end of each job, we almost always have leftover ink. If this is the case, we simply scrape it off the screen, and put it right back into the jar that it came from. But sometimes, there isn’t really enough ink to warrant saving for a new job, and that’s when it just gets disposed of, even though it’s still perfectly good. But once we started analyzing our processes, this seemed like one of the easiest things to change!

So we set up dump buckets around the shop so they can be reused, and also mixed together all our low inks that would have otherwise been thrown away. In order to get colors that aren’t just brown or grey, we decided to separate them into light colors, and dark colors, and also differentiate between cool and warm colors as well. After just a week, we now have three new shades of economy ink for our customers to choose from, and here are the closest Pantone matches:

To be honest, they ended up being much nicer colors than we expected them to be, so that was a pleasant surprise. To try and get this new ink off the ground, we’re offering 15% off on printing for customers who order shirts including these inks for as long as they last, so tell your friends! We’re diggin’ the earthy vibes of these tones, and we think you will too!

The post Introducing: Eco-friendly Economy Inks! first appeared on Barrel Maker.

When we all got together and went over what we had worked on from the previous meeting, we had already ran into some roadblocks. The first being, our garbage/recycling company totally ignored our requests. Womp womp. But it’s okay, because we have the power of the internet and can press on. So we took it upon ourselves to find the best recycling guidelines. Now of course, these guidelines vary city by city, but here’s what we found for our shop in Chicago:

First up, here’s what not to recycle – it’s important to pay attention to these common problem items, because often if you have even one or two of these items in your bin, the company will simply throw all your items away:

• Plastic bags — not even to dispose of other recyclables (please don’t bag your recycling!)
• Shredded paper — the little pieces get stuck to other items and can clog machines. Don’t do it!
• Pizza boxes — the grease is the issue here. Either put the entire box in the garbage or tear off the greasy part before recycling.
• Styrofoam — aka No. 6 plastic
• Coffee cups
• Electronics
• Clothing
• Potato chip and other greasy snack bags
• Toys and other odd-shaped plastics like laundry baskets
• Stringy things like garden hoses, cables/cords and Christmas tree lights that can wrap and jam up sorting equipment

Now, here’s what you can recycle, and keep in mind all must be clean and empty! You don’t have to scrub them, but a quick rinse will go a long way:

• Bottles, glass or plastic – keep the lids on!
• Mail, including envelopes with plastic windows
• Cans, even empty aerosol cans
• Boxes – only CLEAN boxes
• Cartons
• Jugs

Keep in mind, these are just the rules for Chicago – want to check out the rules of your city? A great site for reference is https://www.recyclebycity.com – we are also in the process of working out a great new option to reuse our ink – stay tuned!

The post Sustainability #2 – Upping our Recycling Game first appeared on Barrel Maker.

We also want to make the process as helpful and transparent as possible, so we’re going to document it here on our blog. We’ll update you every two weeks after each meeting, and let you know what we’re thinking, what our action items are, and most importantly – if it works. Any successes we have we’d like to share with other shops to help the practices catch on, cause let’s face it – if the head of the EPA doesn’t believe in human-driven climate change, we all need to crank up our responsibility by 300%. So here’s what we came up with on day one:

Our biggest goal for the first day? Start small. Leave the meeting with specific, manageable action items we can put into effect immediately, and assign each person a task. Then move up from there each meeting.

1. Recycling – We definitely recycle, but like everything else, we know we can do better. Everyone can. It’s sadly common that recycling companies have to throw entire bins of recyclables away simply because the items haven’t been properly cleaned or sorted, and we don’t want to be that guy. So first, we’re starting by contacting the garbage and recycling company to see if they can send us any guidelines on what we should be recycling and how. We are also going to purchase 3 more bins, one for the kitchen to replace the tiny one we have that fills up too quickly, and two to put back in production since we’ve realized that many of our printers do not walk all the way to the bin in the kitchen to recycle properly.

2. Signs – We’re going to make detailed signs for all three recycling locations that contains the info we received from the recycling company to be sure everyone else has friendly reminders to help us do the best that we can.

3. Dishes – We already have a bunch of Barrel Maker mugs for coffee, but we’d like to take it a step further by purchasing real dishes and silverware to replace all disposable cutlery, cups, and plates that we normally purchase several times a month. This will also probably result in another sign reminding people to wash their dishes after they use them, cause you know, we’re not their moms.

4. Looking forward – We are also going to take the next week to observe how the misprint shirt flow occurs from beginning to end, and come to the next meeting with an overall process for us to discuss and amend so that we are more effectively re-using our shirts. We already use misprints as rags for cleaning screens, but we’d like to go past this and find an even better way to recycle and maybe reuse the rags as well. We also agreed to think on a better way to organize our ink dump buckets to create a recycled ink color, and maybe find a way to donate or market shirts to charities and organizations for free using this ink as well as the extra shirts we have lying from years of running our company. But, more on that after our next meeting.

Our next meeting is Thursday, 10/12, and we’ll send over more updates then! In the meantime, stay green folks!

The post Our First Sustainability Meeting first appeared on Barrel Maker.

As much as we like to automate things in this industry, the human touch is still a very real part of the process. Yes, machines can do quite a bit now, but shirts, despite popular opinion, are still very hand made. There will always be a slight fluctuation, and each shirt is still unique, even in just the slightest way. But even more unique than the shirt itself, is the worker behind it. Nearly two billion t-shirts are made every year, and a large portion of these shirts are made by people in sweatshop conditions, for a wage that does nothing to offset their actual cost of living.

This fact is something that leaves companies like us with a large sense of responsibility to not only be aware of the situation, but to actively seek ways to combat it. That’s why we helped found the company Allmade Apparel, that is disrupting the vicious cycle. Allmade has set up shop in Haiti, where the average worker earns only $3 a day to often support an average sized family of 8. This leads to a large number of orphaned children surrendered by their parents because they can not afford their most basic needs.

So to make great shirts, and also help the workers and their families, Allmade has partnered with the Global Orphan Project to not only produce great quality shirts, but also fight generational poverty in Haiti. They pay workers five times the usual rate in the area, which is an amount specifically calculated to meet the basic needs of a typical Haitian household. Every single penny of these profits are dedicated to programs that support orphans, and this is only one of the many programs that The Global Orphan Project has in the works.

Another one of these projects is the Transition Academy, which is designed to assist children that are aging out of community-sponsored care with housing, education, and vocational skills. The Academy offers majors in Agriculture, Diesel Mechanics, and Apparel, and currently seventy students are enrolled. The students that are on the Apparel track learn hands-on skills at the GOEX facility where Allmade shirts are produced. Seven students are currently on this track with bright futures to continue, and eight have already passed the program to work full time at the facility.

And these shirts aren’t just good for the workers, they’re good for the environment too. Each shirt is made from organic, non-GMO grown cotton, sustainably harvested modal, and recycled polyester yarn made from water bottles. Each shirt is made up of roughly 3 bottles! A typical t-shirt will also travel 16,000 miles before it even gets sold, and most of this shipping is done using bunker fuel, a heavy oil residue that is so toxic that most countries won’t even let ships using it within 200 miles of their shore. But with Allmade, Haiti is only a half hour flight from Miami, and that’s as far as the shirts go.

Our team frequently takes trips to the facility in Haiti, and we have another one coming up in just a few weeks. We’re very excited to be a part of this team, and to not only raise awareness about the harmful conditions surrounding large apparel companies, but to change the system directly. The company is currently funding their next steps with an Indiegogo campaign, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated as the Allmade story continues. But until then, donate if you can, spread the word, and sit tight, because their shirts will be available to use for your orders with Barrel Maker. We hope you’ll join us in supporting this amazing company.

The post Shirts Are Not Made By Machines first appeared on Barrel Maker.