Dirtball Fashion is a forward-thinking company out of North Carolina that is making some of the most eco-friendly gear out there today. Unlike some apparel companies that are just trying to make efforts to be eco-friendly, Dirtball Fashion is founded on the concept of striving to make fashionable, eco-friendly clothing. Dirtball Fashion makes its shirts and shorts out of recycled water bottles (shirts are made out of 65% recycled cotton fiber and 35% recycled post consumer polyester, shorts are 100% recycled polyester) and the prints on the shirts include stylish water bottles and other eco-friendly images and messages.

One of the coolest things is that one of the company’s shorts is not only recycled, it’s recyclable. That’s right. When the shorts are worn out, they can be returned to Dirtball Fashion where they’ll be re-spun back into polyester fiber. How cool is that? And if that’s not enough, you actually get rewarded for being a steward of your own environment and recycling the shorts by getting 20% on a future online purchase from Dirtball Fashion.

If you don’t see why you need to help out by buying clothing made of recycled material, here are some facts from Dirtball Fashion’s website that may help convince you:

* Each Dirtball T-shirt contains 2 ½ 16oz. water bottles.
* 2 million plastic bottles are used in the U.S. every 10 minutes.
* 51 billion plastic bottles go into U.S. landfills every year.
* 3 billion plastic bottles recycled is the equivalent of saving over half a million barrels of oil and eliminating 400,000 tons of harmful air emissions which contribute to acid rain, global warming and smog.
* Recycling pre-consumer cotton helps to keep 5 billion pounds of waste from going into U.S. landfills.
* Buy buying fabric made with recycled cotton, you are helping to reduce the effects of insecticides and other chemicals have on our soil, air and water tables.
* It takes 1/3 lb of agricultural chemicals to produce 1 cotton t-shirt.
* Cotton requires 22,000 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of cotton lint making it the most fresh water intensive crop in the world.
* Cotton uses some 25% of the world’s insecticides, even though it is grown on 2.4% of the world’s land. Cotton consumes 60% of the insecticides applied in the U.S.
* Recycled cotton doesn’t take the manual labor or land use that is required for conventionally grown cotton. It takes twice as much land usage to produce the same amount of organic cotton as conventionally grown cotton.
* The majority of the organic cotton is produced in Asia and shipped to the U.S. offsetting any environmental benefits due to the transportation resulting carbon footprint.

These are some very sobering facts that I was definitely not fully aware of. As we continually see the effects of pollution around us and see the gradual shortening of the ski season, it’s great to see companies like this that are pushing the envelope in the area of environmentalism. Kudos Dirtball Fashion.

See what else we do....

Dirtball Working with Brooklands Associates in the UK and Europe

Brooklands Associates Ltd are pleased to announce that they are now the world sales and marketing partner for the eco clothing manufacture Dirtball Fashion.

Dirtball produce sports wear made from 100% recycled materials with a large percentage of this coming from plastic bottles. For every 100K pcs. of Dirtball Fashion products produced 670K plastic bottles stay out of landfills with 400 tons of carbon emissions kept out of the atmosphere and 500 barrels of oil are saved.

Not only is the product eco friendly it also benefits in other ways as 5 full time UK manufacturing jobs are created or retained. Dirtball Fashion donates to 1% For The Planet. Dirtball Fashion is a triple bottom line company, taking into account social, economic and environmental considerations along with their financials. Dirtball Fashion is also a Fair trade company.

The Dirtball range has just been launched with 20 distinct designs of T-shirts all carrying the eco message in addition the range of Shirts, Jeans, Trousers, Shorts, Jackets, Socks and Hats being available. Keenly priced Brooklands have already had a great deal of interest from the market with leading retailers seeing the benefit too their business of supporting a brand which carries so many positive messages.

Director of Brooklands Associates Neill Walker commented on the partnership, “As a company we are very excited at having been given this fantastic product to represent, its green credentials are stunning, the quality of the product for the price is superb, the quality of the T-shits should carry a much higher price point than we have given at only £19.95 RRP which provides retailers with a very strong margin”. He added “the green message is so strong in the product range and we are very happy to find a like minded partner to work with. So many times the eco message is lost and yet here we have something everyone can support and grow”.

Dirtball, is the brainchild of Joe Fox from North Carolina, Joe founded the company back in 2008. Dirtball, is the original recycled, American, street savvy brand based company providing only the highest quality eco-friendly products available. Dirtball believes in preserving the planet and everything they make is in consideration of our environment. They are not tree huggers but they sure want to stop the destruction of our planet. Their collection is produced using only eco-friendly organic cotton and recycled post consumer materials, everything is manufactured in modern factories under fair trade conditions.

The range is aimed at everyone in the market place those who want to look good and put something back. The products are stylish, attractive, at the right price and for a wide market audience. The range is available now with a 10 week delivery on the new orderes.

For more information on Brooklands Associates Ltd or Dirtball Fashion, please contact Neill Walker or Daniel Woodard.

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For images or additional information please contact Neill Walker, +44 (0) 1476 530380 or + 44 (0) 7766001616

Dirtball is Coming to the UK in 2011

100% Recycled

In spring of 2008 former professional race car driver Joe Fox, turned a bar insult into a name for his future clothing company, Dirtball Fashion. “A good friend of mine, Wayne Coble, had a girl call him a Dirtball one night,” he said. Jokingly, Coble slapped the oh-so-charming phrase on a few hats and distributed them to friends, including Fox. According to Fox, his “Dirtball” hat was quite the conversation piece. “People kept asking me about the hat, and one day, I said, ‘This is my new apparel company.’”

Fox, a North Carolina native, embarked on a new mission: US-made, eco-friendly apparel.

His analysis of the Southeast’s dismal employment figures helped him realize the importance of using in-house manufacturing practices in his business. In hopes of reviving North Carolina’s depleting economy, Fox set up shop in his home state.

At the time of his company’s launch, the South was facing one of the worst droughts in its history, and a North Carolina wild fire caused air quality warning levels to escalate to code purple, the highest level of concern on the scale of particle pollution. Instead of adding to his area’s pollution problems, Fox said he wanted to create a solution.

Fox describes Dirtball Fashion’s environmental and economic impact in his interview below:

What impact does your company have on the environment?
Our impact is pretty substantial. For every 100,000 t-shirts we produce we keep:
700,000 bottle out of landfills
400 tons of carbon emissions out of the air
500 barrels of oil saved
Five manufacturing jobs
Just imagine what we could do if produced one million garments annually. What an impact! Every customer both retail and wholesale can have an effect on the economy and the environment - points that get overlooked far too often.

What aspects of your company are eco-friendly?

First, one hundred percent of our soft goods have eco-friendly content. All of our fabrics are eco-friendly but some of our trims are not, as the eco-option in some instances has to come from overseas. In that case we revert to U.S.-sourced materials. The second aspect is our supply chain. Of the 15 mills in our supply chain, eleven are within 100 miles of our headquarters. The total distance our t-shirts travel from yarn to finished goods is 140 miles and average distance of 360 miles total travel distance across our product range.  Now think about goods coming from overseas or from Central America; China to North Carolina is 8,300 miles; India to North Carolina is 7,700 miles and Honduras to North Carolina is 1,600 miles. Even if we changed our distribution to California, the average of the three would still be about 5,700 miles. That is a big footprint, approximately 15 times larger than ours.

Which retailers carry your brand?
Right now we are in several independent shops in North Carolina with the majority of our sales coming from online and our contract manufacturing business which is growing very quickly. We are in sales mode right now and working on some distribution as well as multi-chain placement.

What are your company’s goals for the future?
Short term we want to continue growing our brand, our sales, sales force and our contract manufacturing, as well as work on some private equity placement and larger distribution channels.  Mid-term, we want to vertically integrate into a rehabilitated mill that generates power form solar, geo-thermal, hydro and fuel cell. It will be LEEDS certified and operate under ISO 14000 guidelines, in other words a 100% green factory. Finally, long term we want to take Dirtball public.