In a world where sustainable and ecological products are becoming the new standard, the cry for sustainable jeans can’t be ignored any longer. Over the last years, Ansi | PGT has spared no effort in finding sustainable alternatives for the traditional denim fabrics and production process. Fast forward to today, our sustainability policy is thriving. We poured our sustainable goals into 5 key components, in order to offer our clients high-quality denim products with a strong sustainable responsibility:
How do we achieve this, we hear you think? With the help of new technologies of course! Let’s call them the 5 pillars of our Ansi|PGT sustainability policy.
E-Flow is a new technology developed by Jeanologia. Based on nanobubble technology, e-Flow acts as a carrier to transmit chemicals into denim. To be more precise, air from the atmosphere is being transformed into nanobubbles, in which water and a minimum quantity of chemical products naturally distribute themselves forming a nanobubble skin. This technique allows all kinds of high-quality finishing effects, such as softening, tinting flow, 3D effects, stone flow and random flow, all while guaranteeing the same fastness values of the denim. Thanks to e-Flow technology, water ceases to be the carrier of the chemical products. For Ansi | PGT, this means substantial savings on 3 fronts:
Since long, we searched for ways to reduce our chemical use during the dyeing and bleaching process of our denim. Thanks to an innovative ozone machine, we do just that: we introduce the atmospheric air into the G2 generator, which converts the air into Ozone gas that is moved inside the tumbler. Next, the O₃ fade the garment by breaking the anchor of the fibre dyeing. Finally, the O₃ is transformed back to air and released into the atmosphere again. This way, we can create different colour washes, without using harmful techniques.
As a result, we are able to reduce the contamination risk and harmful emissions to a minimum. On top of that, less water, energy and chemical products are needed: 67 % less water, 85 % less chemicals and 62 % less energy.
Today, most jeans are washed before they hit the stores. The fashion scene is obsessed with a worn-in aesthetic, which used to be achieved by breaking the jeans in artificially, using techniques such as stonewashing and acid wash. This last technique involves soaking pumice stones with bleach such as potassium permanganate (PP), a powerful chemical with high health and environmental hazards. Next to PP spray, sandblasting is another way to create local fades on denim. In this case, the fabric is blasted with abrasive sand containing silica. It is a cheap and quick treatment that comes with a high cost: when inhaled, the particles cause a deadly lung disease called silicosis. Thankfully, there are safer and greener alternatives available, such as laser technology. Thanks to this innovative technology, we can avoid harmful procedures such as sandblasting, manual scraping or handsanding, and potassium permanganate spraying. This allows us to offer improved working conditions for our employers, while creating an eco-friendly fabric with washes that are as beautiful as the chemical induced toxic washes. On top of that, lasers are very precise and can produce patterns or fades without damaging the fabric. According to Jeanologia, denim fabric only loses 5 to 6 % of strength after being lasered versus 20 % when using a PP spray. High-quality jeans that are fashionable and sustainable at the same time, what’s not to love?
Besides the Jeanologia E-Soft Technology, Ansi | PGT also uses their EIM system, short for Environmental Impact Measuring. Thanks to EIM, we can assess the environmental impact of our production process and make efficient and sustainable adjustments along the way. This has a big influence on 4 different fronts: water consumption, energy consumption, chemical products and worker health. EIM distinguishes 3 different scores: low, medium and high impact. We are proud to announce that our Ansi | PGT denim belongs to the low impact group, which means the following:
Water consumption: between 0 and 35 L/garment (in comparison with a high impact score of 80 L/garment)
Energy consumption: between 0 and 1 kWh/garment (in comparison with a high impact score of 2 kWh/garment)
Use of chemical products: between 0 and 14 (in comparison with a high impact score of above 27)
Worker health: between 0 and 6.5 (in comparison with a high impact score of above 18)
Despite the efforts of synthetics to take over the jeans industry, cotton is still the primary raw material of denim production. Denim is responsible for a whopping 35 % of the total cotton consumption. But unfortunately, cotton farming implies a lot of challenges. Conventional farming consumes large amounts of water and chemicals, with a high risk of soil erosion, water and soil contamination, and the loss of biodiversity as a result. There is also a high risk involved for the farmers, who unfortunately can’t rely on enough profit to make a decent living. Fortunately this is all beginning to change thanks to organizations such as Better Cotton Initiative. We are now fully aware of the importance of using organic cotton during our production process. But let's not forget about recycled cotton either. At Ansi|PGT, we also use recycled cotton as a long-term solution to the growing scarcity of raw material. Thanks to the recycling technology of Renewcell, we are able to break down old cotton clothing into a biodegradable pulp and produce 100 % recycled denim with it. This allows us to turn our production into a never-ending recycling loop. Because being sustainable begins with using the right fabric.
As you can see, Ansi|PGT is here for the long haul and we take our sustainability commitment seriously. Do you want to know what sustainable difference we can make for your jeans line? Get in touch and let’s strive together for a greener fashion industry.
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