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WHAT IS THE 50 JACKET?
"The 50" achieves the perfect balance: The jacket manages be stylish while also being eco-friendly and recyclable. Not only is every jacket made with 100% recycled water bottles, but after wearing "The 50" jacket, consumers will be able to send it back to the factory to be ground up and turned back into poly fiber to be woven into new fabrics (and receive a discount for future Dirtball purchases). This means that The 50 is on a closed-loop manufacturing process, making the jacket the first of its kind on the market! Hands down- this is the coolest trash you’ll ever wear.
WONDERING HOW WE TURN WATER BOTTLES INTO CLOTHES?
Post-consumer plastic bottles are sorted according to color, stripped of their labels and caps, washed and ground down to shavings. These flakes are melted and extruded into a polyester fiber that is nearly identical chemically and functionally to virgin polyester.
SOME FACTS ABOUT THE 50
- Number of geese killed to make this insulated jacket - 0
- Every jacket is produced from a material made exclusively from 50 recycled plastic water bottles
- Shell Fabric - 70 Denier 4.5 oz per square yard recycled polyester with DWR
- Body Fill - 6 Denier 11.5 oz per square yard recycled polyester
- Arm Fill - 6 Denier 8.5 oz per square yard recycled polyester
- Weight approx. 16oz
- The 50 is a puffer jacket, making it perfect for the upcoming winter and, casual hikes, walks in the urban jungles after work or going to the farm and doing some good ole heavy lifting.
- Available Color: Black
- Available Uni-Sex Sizes: Extra Small, Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large and 2XL
- 100% made in the USA
- Will sustain 150 U.S. manufacturing jobs for a three-month production cycle.
- If it doesn't fit right send it back for a different size and we'll send you a surprise gift with the new one
- We will ship internationally!
THE DIRTBALL STORY
Dirtball was founded in 2008 under some pretty simple principles. All of our products are 100% eco-friendly and entirely made in the USA. All of our polyester comes exclusively from recycled water bottles and our cotton is 100% recycled as well.
Every Dirtball garment begins at the source – recycled plastic bottles and recycled cotton. You know how recycled plastic water bottles are turned into polyester fiber, and the cotton comes from industry scraps that hit the floor and would usually go to landfills. This is also sorted according to color and blended with the polyester to make a new fiber. The fiber is then spun into yarn and knitted into fabric to be cut and sewn into a garment.
Pre-sorting all the materials by color is absolutely crucial to the environmental impact of Dirtball. By avoiding dying the fabric in the manufacturing process, we are able to save tremendously on the use of water, energy and chemicals.
Dirtball also make a serious effort to align ourselves with other organizations that share our vision a few examples are the band Widespread Panic, Google and The University of Vermont to name a few. From the people and organizations we sell to, to the companies we work with to produce Dirtball gear, Dirtball works to ensure that the impact of its products is considered in the widest possible scope. We consider the environmental impact of everything from our webpage designer to our printers, from our promotional materials to our packaging, from our office operations to our shipping. We always substitute digital for paper whenever possible and recycle everything that we can.
SOME FACTS ABOUT PLASTIC
66 Billion bottles of water are consumed each year in the U.S.A. alone
51 billion plastic bottles go into U.S. landfills every year
2 million plastic bottles are used in the U.S. every 10 minutes
10 plastic bottles = 1 pound of polyester fiber
It takes up to 750 years for a water bottle to decompose
1 ton (2000) lbs of plastic bottles recycled saves 3.8 barrels of oil
1 million plastic bottles recycled eliminates 180 metric tons of CO2 emissions from being released into the atmosphere
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
10% of all US oil consumed (2 million barrels per day) is used to make plastics
Recycling plastic bottles takes 8 times less energy than to produce an equivalent amount of new ones. That means that each jacket will save approximately 3 gallons of crude oil
More than 45,000 tons of plastic are thrown into the oceans every year, killing as many as 1,000,000 seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals.
95% of all plastic ever created is still in existence today.
More than 90% of refuse found on beaches is plastic.
WHY KICKSTARTER
We were so pleased with the success of the Green Jean on Kickstarter last year that we decided to come back for round two with The 50 jacket. We need your help - if our goal is met, we will sustain 150 U.S manufacturing jobs for three months, save countless water bottles from ending up in landfills and save around 3 gallons of crude oil! We are on a mission at Dirtball to make the world a better place - we just can’t do it without your help!
Please help to support us by spreading our message:
Risks and challenges
The challenges are great as we have never produced a piece of outerwear before. However sampling of the jacket has gone smoothly and we have worked with all of the factories that are involved with The 50 before. Our main challenge will not be getting it made, but funding the program so please share. The more we make the more good we do!
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Funding period
- (30 days)