NHFF Sustainability Partner, EarthTec, Celebrates Earth Day with Style
In celebration of Earth Day, we at NHFF would like to give a special shout-out to our sustainability partner, EarthTec.
EarthTec is an environmentally conscious clothing shop. From their facebook page: “EARTHTEC is a sustainable lifestyle apparel brand. We produce top quality garments from the most innovative eco textiles in the world.”
The eco textiles are really quite amazing and Earthtec prides itself on only using recycled or renewable fabrics: Organic Cotton, Natural Wool, and Recycled PET.
Organic Cotton means genetically unmodified cotton grown without the use of herbicides, pesticides, or synthetic fertilizers. EarthTec wants to specifically work with and support farmers with the health of the earth on their mind, reducing the amount of chemicals, and improving the fertility of the earth’s arable soil.
Natural Wool comes from EarthTec’s hand-selected ranchers who treat their animals humanely, and are as green as possible when processing their raw wool fibers.
And perhaps the most interesting is Earthtec’s Recycled PET. PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, is used in almost all the plastic packaging in the US. It is the most reusable in the form of water/soda bottles, which about 150 billion of get tossed into landfills around the world every year. With a new innovative technology EarthTec is giving these plastic bottles new use, by turning them into a polyester hybrid fabric. The condensed (and easier to explain) process goes like this: The bottles are ground into poly flake, the poly flake is melted down and extruded into fiber, and the fiber is woven into fabric. This waste plastic finds new purpose as a polyester yarn in fleeces, jackets, and hoodies. About 12 bottles are used in each one of Earthtec’s recycled PET garments, keeping them out of landfills, starting to minimize waste.
Last year EarthTec generously donated 30 NHFF logo’d fleeces and vests for the 2011 festival, (See photo of NHFF Board Chairman Zac Gregg in his EarthTec fleece vest with Tommy Chong and Executive Director Nicole Gregg) and contributed plastic bottle collection bins at all of our venues as part of their Earth360 program.
To celebrate today’s holiday EarthTec launched a 20% off sitewide/storewide sale that started Thursday 4/19 and continues through until today 4/22. They are also holding a photo contest on their facebook page today. The best photo winner will receive a free Earth Tec T-shirt, contest results will be announced on Monday. To enter, post a photo of what’s blooming in your yard on the store’s facebook page.
So if you weren’t able to plant a tree this Earth Day (and even if you were) get some green living in and visit the store at 76 Congress St. or browse/shop their online store. Happy Earth Day!