The Reasons We Exist
Care for people + our planet
How many times have you received a branded t-shirt for a sporting, volunteer or trade show event?
Typically, that shirt gets worn 2-4 times before getting donated. No one ends up purchasing the shirt so it eventually ends up in a landfill overseas.
Last Shot Apparel specializes in eco-friendly promotional apparel for events, nonprofits, clubs, companies and more.
How are we eco-friendly?
Major fashion and fabric brands will donate or discard hundreds of metres of fabric that goes unused for reasons including overstock and discontinued styles. We use this material to make promotional apparel for events, nonprofits, clubs, companies and more. If we can not fulfill your order by using dead-stock fabric we will offer 100% organic cotton as an alternative.
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Discarded fabric contributes to the 92 million tons of waste produced by the fashion industry each year
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According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the fashion industry is responsible for over 10% of the worlds’ carbon emissions - more than the shipping and international flights combined
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The average American throws away 70 lbs to 80 lbs of clothing every year
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The fashion industry remains the second largest industrial polluter,
second only to oil
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It's estimated that humans are using natural resources 1.7 times faster than ecosystems can regenerate. In other words, consuming 1.7 Earths
Want to learn more? Visit our blog or reach out and we will be happy to connect!
The Environmental Affects of The Clothing Industry
The Clothing Industry: Safety and Human Rights Violations
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Fast Fashion refers to the clothing brands who outsource manufacturing of their garments with speed and cost at the forefront of their decisions. Often this means the health of humans and our planet is an after thoughts.
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In the mid 90s, the United States was producing 95% of their clothing. Today, they produce around 2% ((Ndubisi & Nygaard, 2018). This shift came after the World Trade Organizations amended trade agreements, significantly reducing quotas on clothing (Taplin, 2014). Now, the three largest clothing manufacturers are China, India and Bangladesh.
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The industry boom that these countries faced meant that their focus was on lowering production costs and increasing production times. We continue to see little industry regulations. Therefore, fair wages and workplace health and safety fall through the cracks.
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The Rana Plaza disaster of 2013 provides an example of human rights and workplace safety violations that come from poor regulation. Rana Plaza was an 8-story factory that collapsed, killing over 1000 workers. The plaza collapsed due to structural flaws. "While businesses in the building’s lower floors had immediately closed when structural cracks were discovered a day earlier, thousands of factory workers were forced — either directly by their superiors, or indirectly by the pressure to earn a day’s wage — to return on the day of the collapse, despite many of them raising concerns" (Holland, CNN Report, 2023)
Our Fabrics
Crafted from dead-stock and 100% organic cotton material
Dead-stock fabric refers to the unused fabric discarded by apparel and fabric companies. Brands will discard this fabric due to various reasons including: overstock, discontinued styles, change in pattern design, etc.
Once a company discards their unused fabrics, it is typically shipped to landfills overseas.
Unless someone intervenes and save this fabric from reaching landfills. Our company gives this fabric one last shot.
Our go-to deads-stock fabric suppliers are Fabcycle and Our Social Fabric in Vancouver.
If we can not fulfill your order by using dead-stock fabric, we will offer 100% organic cotton as an alternative.