Showing posts with label plastic fibre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plastic fibre. Show all posts

Monday, July 6, 2009

An Eco Friendly Pillow from EcoTex (?)

My title for this blog was created prior to my researching for this article and now I am slightly mystified so let me share the current situation and hopefully someone can shed some light.

Yesterday Matt and I went to one of the big box stores to pick up a few items for our new home as we desired to spend a little less money but acquire everything we needed in one location. (This is our tradeoff, less gas driving around to many stores but not shopping at local places). One of the items on our list -- pillows. Ours are so old I barely remember purchasing them and so it was time to change.

Perusing the aisles and squishing a whole bunch wrapped in plastic can be a mind boggling experience as there are so many to choose from. I saw standard, queen & king sized, medium or firm squishiness and prices all over the map depending if the item in question was a brand name, memory foam, hybrid (foam / poly fill), feather fill or store brand. We settled on a couple standard sized, standard squish ones in a low to mid price range. The felt like the right choice for us and we pushed the cart on.

Rounding the corner of the next aisle however opened up another row of pillows. My eyes immediately went right to this pillow


Reading the package I learned this pillow is filled with fiber made from recycled water bottles, the plastic packaging will begin to biodegrade in about three months and that the cotton cover is bleached using 100% hydrogen peroxide. Best of all the price was exactly the same as the others we had selected so we put the originals back and purchased the EcoTex pillow instead, feeling great bout our choice.

Until today.

I always like to link back to the company website (especially when doing a Leaf Rating Review) so since there was none listed on the package, I Googled EcoTex. The top selection was this website:
http://www.ecotex.com/
Upon reading through it definitely is not the correct location so I went back to Google and began searching for anything to get the right website. When nothing produced the desired results, I grabbed the pillow and read through the tag hoping for something.

The parent company that makes the pillow I have is named Springs Global so I looked them up. Not only could I not find an actual website for these folks but I must have visited over twenty websites and found nothing related to a pillow named EcoTex other than this Natures Sleep pillow which is not only completely different looking but is not even close to the same description.

As a total last resort I went to the big box store’s website and searched for this product in every possible manner but to no avail. Is this package from the alleged company EcoTex is nothing more than a clever way to get people to purchase the product or does the company really exist and creates recycled water bottle fill and biodegradable bags? I suddenly became very aware of the fact that it is quite possible I was duped by some form of greenwashing. This does not please me as I am a careful consumer who enjoys reporting back on as much great stuff as possible for all of you readers who enjoy learning. In this case the learning was in the doing.

I would love nothing more than to be completely incorrect and have to print a retraction to my allegations of greenwashing by a company that does not exist so please if you belong to this company, recognize the photo of my pillow package or simply know the website I could not locate in all my searching please let me know immediately!

Unfortunately I will be unable to grant the Leaf Rating I wanted to grant as I am unsure as to the validity of the claims made by this product.

Today’s motto? Essentially, live and learn:

Study, learn and purchase armed with as much knowledge as possible but be aware that sometimes even then the final result might still be undesirable.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Eco Fashion Friday Featured Designer Revenge Is

Last week I featured the Revenge Is tee as part of the Eco Fashion Friday series and while researching the company I was so utterly impressed that I knew they deserved their own review and feature!


Right away the tag line “Making activism fashionable” greets you as you enter their website. They could not be more right on. Utilizing organic cotton in their tees is just the beginning. How about recycling 3-5 plastic bottles and after melting them down turning it into a fiber that creates clothing. Not a joke, these folks are using upwards of 65% RPET (recycled plastic) in their shirts. A market tote they sell is 100% RPET, now that is eco-fashion! They create tees for men, women and kids to spread the word about environmentally responsible practices.

One might think the cost for such innovative design would be through the roof but overall their price is right in line with other graphic tee designers as they hover in the $30 range. Not bad for keeping a whole bunch of plastic out of landfills. The shirts are screen printed using soy based inks and the children’s tees also contain no PVC, Phthalates, Formaldehyde, Heavy Metal, or APEO to ensure the health of kids.

Then there is the shipping method they use -- all tees are shipped in Tyvek bags to reduce weight, potential of damage and conserve space on the delivery trucks. Oh yeah and they encourage reuse of the bags by turning them inside out but if you don’t want to they allow for returns of the bag so they can properly recycle it either at Tyvek’s facility in Virginia or at Revenge Is offices in Los Angeles, California.

The way I see it, Revenge Is…a Five Leaf Rating! Top honors for such a top notch company doing all they can to make a difference in this eco fight.


Keep on keeping on and get your Revenge! ♥love♥