Sustainability is a big word made up of many tiny steps and attention to details.
We weigh every decision for Kint carefully to ensure there's minimal impact on our environment. We are not where we want to be yet, but progression is the key. Here are some of the steps we've taken to ensure we're moving in the right direction.
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MANUFACTURING PARTNER
At Kint, we choose to only work with partners who share the same business ethos. Derek, the owner of our manufacturing partner in Guangdong is a triathlete himself for more than 10 years. He chanced upon Corporate Social Responsibility when he pursued his Finance Masters in Durham and became interested in sustainability projects. As an avid athlete, coupled with a family background in textile manufacturing, he found his passion in creating quality and eco-friendly activewear. Together, we work towards ensuring that we create the lowest environment impact possible in our production process, while being socially responsible for the welfare of our team.
Our production team is paid adequately and work in well-lit, spacious factories. Welfare is key and in times like this, all measures have also been put into place to ensure they stay safe and healthy.
#IMADEYOURCLOTHES
There's a face to every piece of activewear we make, and we hope you’ll treasure it as much as we do.
Meet Ah Juan
Born in Anhui province, Ah Juan has been in garment manufacturing for 8 years. The 28 year-old specialises in sample making and plays a critical role in ensuring every new design created is of the right fit for us to test before we send for official production.
Ah Juan hard at work - We had to interrupt to take a photo of this usually shy lady!
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MATERIAL & FABRIC
Kint activewear is made of post-consumer plastic bottles, which contains polyester (PET). Wonder how we recycle plastic bottles into wearable activewear fabric? Here's a simplified flowchart to explain how it all works!
Why use Recycled Polyester fibre (RPET)?
- Recycled polyester uses PET as a raw material (which is a non-biodegradable material). This prevents the plastic from going into landfills and oceans, which contaminates the soil and the sea.
- Recycled polyester production also uses much lesser energy compared to virgin polyester. A whopping 35 - 53% lesser!
- This results in less consumption of fossil fuels required compared to PET.
- Garments made from RPET can actually be recycled again and again without any degradation of quality, which means it can potentially be a closed loop system for this plastic to be reused again and again.
So actually, the non-biodegradability of PET may not be a bad thing after all, if we reuse it the right way.
Getting there
- The production of RPET still uses energy and therefore, still produces carbon emissions.
- The honest truth is also, once plastic is produced, it is here to stay for a long time, as it will never biodegrade.
A Step at a time
- While It's not perfect, it’s at least taking a step forward in the right direction with a number of key environmental benefits.
- RPET allows us to re-use the plastic we already have, and circulate the existing resource instead of taking more resources from Earth to produce more new plastic.
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QUALITY ASSURANCE
The Global Recycled Standard (GRS) is a complete product standard that verifies and tracks recycled raw materials through the supply chain. It also includes processing criteria to prevent the use of potentially hazardous chemicals, and verifies positive social or environmental production at the facilities.
The Key Guarantees of GRS includes:
- Reduction of harmful impacts of production on people and environment
- Durably treated products
- High percentages of recycled content in products
- Responsible Production
- Recycled materials
- Traceability
- Transparent communication
STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX® is one of the world's best-known labels for textiles tested for harmful substances. It stands for customer confidence and high product safety. If a textile has been certified, you can be certain that every component of this article i.e. thread, button and other accessories has been tested to ensure it is non-toxic.
The test takes into account both regulated and non-regulated substances, which extends beyond national and international requirements. This criteria is also updated at least once a year with new scientific knowledge/ statutory requirements.
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PACKAGING
GARMENT BAG & POLYMAILER
#INVISIBLEBAG
After testing and trying many forms of eco-friendly packaging, we're so happy to discover The Invisible Company, founded by avid hikern who are committed to find a way to reduce waste at the source and from that thought, #INVISIBLEBAG was born.
#INVISIBLEBAG is made of a water soluble and biodegradable combination of Polyvinyl Alcohol (known as PVA), starch, glycerin and water. One of the primary ingredients, Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA), is a water-soluble and biodegradable synthetic polymer. It was invented in the 1920s by German Scientists, and has mostly been used in medical, embroidery, garment and personal applications since the 1960s, for products such as medicine capsules and laundry detergent pods.
Our plastic-free #invisiblebags dissolve completely within minutes in hot water (80℃ or above), and undergo more than 85% biodegradation in 90 days under landfill conditions.
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TAGS
Our swing tags are made of recycled paper containing wild seeds. Feel free to plant them in a thin layer of moist soil and watch them grow! Even if you're not a plant person, you can dispose of the tags with a peace of mind, knowing that they are completely compostable and biodegradable.
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GIVING BACK
For every order you make, we will be planting a tree on your behalf with Ecologi and Eden Reforestation Projects. Read up more about the Collective Action here.
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CLOSING THE ACTIVEWEAR LOOP
Do you know, we only wear 20% of our wardrobe regularly? Textile waste is a serious problem in Singapore because only 4% of the total waste is recycled successfully. As a brand, using recycled fabrics isn't enough and we're taking a step forward to make a change with Cloop.
For any clean and good activewear (all brands accepted) donated to Cloop, we will be give you $10 off your next Kint order.
3 Steps to redeem:
1. Simply take a photo/video of you donating to Cloop's Textile recycling box at Sprout Hub, and tag Cloop and The Kint Co on IG.
2. We will DM you the discount code within 1 working day.
3. No expiry date on the discount code, so take your time to use it.
* Do note that discount code is not stackable with other ongoing discounts*