Laura’s Quest for the Most Sustainable T-Shirt

The staff at St. Louis Earth Day tries to embody the ethos of our organization in every aspect of our operation, from composting at the office, to commuting by bike or walking to work whenever possible, to our lunch choices. This includes sourcing environmentally friendly St. Louis Earth Day Festival t-shirts for our volunteers and for merchandise.  In previous years, St. Louis Earth Day has purchased 100% organic cotton shirts for our festival, which made us a leader in sustainability for events.

But when Laura Allers-Lowry, Event Manager at St. Louis Earth Day, went to put in the order for our shirts this year, she began to wonder – just where were these organic shirts made, anyway?

Not in the USA, it turns out. According to Laura’s research, nearly all of the options for organic cotton fell under one of two categories:

1. The cotton is grown in the USA, but shipped overseas to be assembled.
2. The shirts are assembled in the USA, but the cotton is grown overseas.

This begs the question, how can something be sustainable if it’s shipped back and forth across the ocean? Equally important in considering overseas production are the human beings working in the textile factories – are they being treated fairly?

After considering transportation and labor, Laura discovered yet another set of complications to consider: the enormous amounts of water used in clothing manufacturing, the chemical-laden backwash from the dye (often simply dumped down the drain) and the printing itself, often done with petroleum-based substances.

None of this was seeming very sustainable, so Laura made it her personal mission to find the most environmentally responsible t-shirt possible for our festival, one that could represent St. Louis Earth Day in every step of its manufacturing process.

In previous years, Laura explained, “I didn’t take (the research) one step further – I think that’s what we all do. I saw ‘organic,’ and thought, ‘that’s it -we’re done!” For the 2016 shirts, Laura more than took an extra step – she took a marathon’s worth of steps further in figuring out what t-shirt best represented our organization.

Hours of research were spent digging into each company’s practices, making phone calls and scouring websites for information that was often buried deep within the bowels of company websites, if available at all.

The situation was brought up in meeting after meeting in the St. Louis Earth Day offices. A flurry of emails were sent to each employee about the seemingly endless factors weighing the sustainability of each option. Despair set in.

Finally, miraculously, Laura found a solution.

Our St. Louis Earth Day t-shirts are grown and sewn in the USA using organic cotton, marking two important criteria off Laura’s checklist. To her delight, she learned that they do their dying in Saint Louis, which meant that St. Louis Earth Day could pick them up onsite, lowering the carbon footprint of t-shirt transportation.

Laura was also able to find a local, water-based, sustainable printer for our shirts; Art Farm STL has a line of environmental options, and they were happy to answer the dozens of questions Laura had about their sustainable practices.

The result? As Laura will proudly tell you, “We’re St. Louis Earth Day, and we really do have the most sustainable t-shirt you can find.”

The cost? Yes, they are slightly more expensive, but only a little, especially when factoring the true environmental costs of a less responsible shirt. As Laura said, “Yeah we’re a nonprofit and (the money) is tight, but it’s worth a buck or two to do the right thing. St. Louis Earth Day sets the tone – if we skimp, everyone else can skimp.”

“We’ve got that sustainability street-cred,” Laura said, bubbling with her trademark laugh.

The St. Louis Earth Day 2016 t-shirts are a lovely shade of  sage-green, and available for purchase for $15. Volunteer shirts are soft mint colored and free to our beloved volunteers.

There is a lesson to be learned through all of this. As Laura said, “You can’t take it for granted that something is sustainable.” Now that she knows the truth about the way clothing is made, she shares the information with friends and family, spreading the gospel of local, responsible manufacturing.

Take an extra step with your purchase – you don’t have to run the whole marathon, (Laura is a pro, after all), but making small changes in your life by doing a bit more research can have a big impact on the planet.

If all of this sounds vaguely familiar to you, you’re not alone. This whole saga reminded me of a segment on NPR’s Planet Money about how their t-shirts were made – a fascinating listen to accompany this tale of a t-shirt.