This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of Proforma Simonetta Freelance, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy (see proformagreen.com). John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.
[social_buttons]
Oh happy day. I cannot tell you how many clients and fellow Ecopreneurists have in the past gotten very excited about recycled material shirts just to have that excitement evaporate when they are told the shirts are produced overseas.
Well, I am very happy to announce the “discovery” of Concept Eco, which has been cutting, sewing, printing,and embroidering environmentally friendly products for over 16 years in West Palm Beach, FL. And it is Concept Eco who is offering this 50% Polyester from Post-Consumer Recycled Clear Plastic Bottles (PC RPET) & 50% Waste Cotton Tee.
The shirts come in natural and white in youth sizes small through large, and adult sizes small through 3XL. The shirts are a very high quality athletic cut, 1 x 1 rib crew neck, with double needle cover stitched sleeves and bottom hem, taped shoulder to shoulder.
All of which means it looks and feels like a t-shirt, same as any other high quality 50% poly & 50% cotton blend shirt. But this shirt was once a water bottle.
The thing is you have already likely seen these shirts on the street and not known it. Concept Eco is an industry only seller so we cannot talk pricing or current clients, but they will say that Concept Eco products have been sold to major beverage companies around the world (as they do ship internationally) as well as many US Fortune 500 corporations in the grocery, automotive, and retail arenas. If you have seen a shirt with a message like “I used to be a water bottle” it was likely a message printed on a Concept Eco shirt.
Another bonus, Concept Eco is a one stop shop, meaning they do both manufacturing and printing under the same roof, which means they can turn shirts in a production time of just 10-12 business days from art approval. They can also do orders as small as a few dozen units or as large as 100,000s.
I cannot say it any stronger than this, if you are an Ecopreneurist working to get a t-shirt or related apparel business off the ground, run, do not walk, to Concept Eco. The industry contact is Mitchell Fine.
If you are interested in these Made in the USA shirts to promote your own business email info@proformagreen.com for information and pricing.
Oh, one last thing. Concept Eco also stocks Made in the USA fleece jackets (87% content RPET blend),
Reusable Bags (100% content RPET blend) and Mesh/Safety apparel (100% content RPET blend). More on those later.
Someone pinch me, please.
Adventures in Green Marketing 
good stuff. I looked at another company (boweevileco.com) last year when we were sourcing tees. Their shirts are recycled poly and recycled cotton – appealing from an environmental point of view, but the shirts are a little ‘rough’. Probably fine for men’s tees. As more people start doing this, I’m sure the quality will improve and improve.