At Dog Threads we are big believers that we should leave our earth better than the way we found it. Our company and team members value ethically made clothing, giving back, recycling, making greener choices and spreading pawsitive vibes. It is our mission to design premium goods that you and your pup will love and cherish for years to come, while donating a portion of all sales to our non-profit animal rescue partners. Unfortunately, manufacturing almost any product contributes to our world’s pollution, including apparel brands like ourselves — and while we can not completely eliminate all pollution from our production, we are forever dedicated to reducing it every chance that we get.
For decades, clothing labels have used hang tags as a branding and marketing tool, especially when selling at brick and mortar locations. Hang tags are the small rectangular tags you see attached to your clothing when you first take your threads home from the store or out of their packaging. It isn't a surprise that these little guys emit a vast amount of waste — the manufacturing of hang tags can waste natural resources like paper, create pollution, and is an added unnecessary cost to brands and the consumer. And for what? You’re likely going to take the hang tag off of your garment quickly, hardly glancing at it, before throwing it away. What a waste. We can do better than that.
Effective immediately, we promise to discontinue all hang tag production for our goods as a part of our commitment to make smarter decisions for our planet every day.
At Dog Threads, the decision to stop using hang tags on our garments really helps us cut back on our carbon footprint and allows us to limit the production of unnecessary waste. By getting rid of our hang tags, we will be saving paper, oil, and water. We will not only be saving the resources used to create the actual hang tag, we will actually be reducing plastic waste from the polypropylene attachment that can take upwards of 30 years to break down.
As a small business we are dedicated to doing good for the earth and those around us. When we recognized we had extra fabric from the creation of our clothing we knew we could upcycle it into something more. We then began using our scrap fabric to create dog beds so that this recycled fabric was not wasted and could be passed on to animals in need. It is our responsibility as a company to continue to evolve and make smarter choices when it comes to manufacturing our products — like upcycling our scrap fabric and cutting out our hang tags. We continue to be inspired by other brands with the same mission, like this cycling brand, PEARL iZUMi, who redesigned their hang tags back in 2018 and now save 19,400 pounds of paper each year. Although they are still using hang tags, they are now printed with soy ink on recycled paper. In addition to 9.7 tons of paper, from 165 trees, the new hang tag program will save 68,082 gallons of water and 4,503 gallons of oil each year.
We’re excited about this change at Dog Threads, and we hope you are too! As always, please reach out with any ideas or thoughts on how we can continue to do even more for our planet, people and pups. :)
Follow along with our journey as we continue to evolve as a company and find new ways to do our part in creating a better environment to live in.
