Organic T Shirt Printing, and Fair Trade

There’s no avoiding it, the apparel industry is mess

We are a Commercial Screen Printer based in Auckland, New Zealand.  Specialising in Custom Printing T-Shirts, Apparel and Textiles.

Printed in New Zealand! With an emphasis on Kiwi Suppliers. 

We Screen Print in Auckland, New Zealand. Our Screen Printers (and the rest if the team) are free-range. 

And from this site you will be able to tell we are very keen on using AS Colour, who are a local company, we love a few things about them:

1. We are supporting local by using them.
2. They got rid of their polyester sports range a few years ago. And were the first to offer 80/20 cotton/polyester as a bottom rung for hoodies, many of the other suppliers are sitting around 60/40, 50/50 or even 100% polyester. This lines up with our goal of avoiding polyester at all costs.
3. AS Colour have affordable Organic Cotton T-shirt printing options. 
4. Their gear prints great.
You can check out their policies on their site.

We do also have a really cool Fairtrade Supplier who we would normally push, however covid has created such stock issues that we simply cannot do so currently.

Polyester, synthetic fibres and the rise of active wear

We wrote a new blog article about this and recently synthetic fibres are back in the news. We had hoped to see more publicity before now.

The meatiest news is that microfibres from your activewear is literally washing down the drain every wash. These fibres (along with other microplastics) have now been found in even near impossible to reach locations in every corner of the world, on land and in the ocean.

Plastics have been detected in not only the animals we eat, but in the plants as well. In fact chemicals from plastic have now been detected in an unborn child.

Despite this, through clever marketing we are buying up performance, dry gear and active wear in record numbers with Active Wear brands popping up left right and centre. Do not be fooled, these are Plastic garments that literally cost less to produce than their natural counterparts, despite their RRPs.

At Graphics on Shirts Limited we do acknowledge there are rare instances where polyester can be advantageous, we can and we do supply sports and polyester garments. However we actively advise against them. We believe the choice is with consumers, however we have found that by firstly hiding these these garments away and secondly by explaining that even run of the mill cotton is better breathing most clients are happy to move to natural fibres.

Environmental policy

We’ve always hated polyester truth be told….
However In 2017 we decided to pivot away from it as much as possible, with an end goal of moving away from it entirely.

The reality is, no matter how clean “Recycled” Polyester manufacturing may be, and all the good recycling intentions there are… Polyester garments shed millions of microfibres over their lifespan and these end up in everything from our Oceans to our Lungs, food and water.

We 100% recommend and only really advertise AS Colour, they have Organic Cotton options – Which are far superior to even the best traditional cotton production. 

However even their standard cotton is BCI accredited.

Our tea towels are all 100% waterbased dye printed and we have made Cotton Supply Co our main focus going forward.

We hate polyester, the earth hates it too.

It’s is the chemicals and release of chemicals in the printing and curing of the garments  that has spurred this on – We do not want our staff exposed to these fumes.

 

Printing, Packing and Couriers

Our Standard inks are PVC and Phthalate free. 
Additionally through Cotton Cotton Supply Co® we supply 100% Cotton Aprons (including cotton straps) and 100% Cotton Tea Towels, which are printed using waterbased dye instead of inks.

We never individually poly(or otherwise) bag garments. Some garments (such as white t shirts/hoods) will be shipped with a liner supplied by their respective suppliers.
All of our Satchels are compostable.
Most garments are sent out with recycled boxes.

We offer collection for local clients to avoid unneeded couriers.
When couriering we use Courier Post who are carbon neutral and are committed to electrifying their fleet.
Local time critical deliveries are made with Urgent Couriers who were NZ’s first Carbon neutral courier company. 

Recycled Polyester – The New Lie!

Polyester producers and Sportswear manufacturers know the tide is turning, so they are spinning a new lie, comparing the Growing and Manufacture of Cotton Garments to the Manufacture of Recycled Polyester Garments (ignoring the initial creation of the plastic) and conviently forgetting the fact most Polyester ends up in Landfills or the Ocean while Cotton biodegrades – and more frightingly ignoring Microfibres (that your polyester fabrics shed millions of).

Which are found in Oceans, our lungs, our food and our drinking water….
Read more at Cotton Supply Co: cottonsupply.co.nz/recycled_polyesters_vs_cotton/

Your yoga pants are literally ending up inside your lungs, your stomach, your blood.

Contact us today to see how you can swap to natural fibres.

Hours: 9am – 5pm Mon-Fri by Appointment
74 Morrin Road Panmure
PO Box 251166, Pakuranga, Auckland
09 358 1249

If you are requesting a quote or have a question please use the form to the right. You can upload images to assist in quoting.

If you wish to obtain an instant estimate and request a quote you can do so from product pages

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Some of the Brands we supply:

AS Colour, Freeset, Biz Corporates, James Harvest, Stormtech, Icebreaker, Team Sports, Jbs Wear, Gildan, Anvil, BMV, Biz Collection, Cloke, Syzmik, Legend Life, Trends Collection, Maxum, The Range.

If you have a particular brand you require custom printing on please specify this your contact message.