From luxury brands to fast fashion, the fashion industry is well known for its negative impact on the environment. To reduce our environmental impact, Global Mamas has made an active decision to incorporate eco-friendly practices while positively impacting the lives of hundreds of African women. Beyond the sound fair trade principle practices, like fair wages and no child labor, that are required of us as guaranteed members of The World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO), each year we continue to proactively look for ways to make earth-friendly improvements to our production methods.
To date, 60 % of the Global Mamas product line is made of upcycled or recycled materials. From recycling glass bottles for our bead jewelry to crafting accessories made from excess fabric like our woven trivets, our products are made with the environment in mind.
FIVE THINGS THAT MAKES GLOBAL MAMAS A LEADER IN EC0-FRIENDLY FASHION
1. The beads for our jewelry and ornaments are made from recycled glass bottles. The bead makers also make beads from broken bead pieces and window panes that would otherwise go to waste. This allows us to recycle waste into beautiful beads perfect for our handmade jewelry collections.
2. We’ve developed a range of products, from pocket wallets and handbags to scrunchies and throw blankets that are made from leftover batik scrap materials, saving them from being thrown away and potentially being burned.
3. The lining of many of our bags and accessories, in addition to our aprons and baby bibs are made from recycled cotton flour sacks, sourced from local bakeries in Ghana. Once the bakeries empty their flour sacks, the castoff fabric sacks are sold to local women. The women then wash the sack until all the flour is out and Global Mamas buys them where they create some of our most popular items including the eco roll up bag perfect for grocery shopping.
4. We use organic cotton that has been certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). This means we know the producers involved in making the cotton are earning living wages and working in ethical conditions. Organic cotton also eliminates unnecessary chemicals for farms and farmers at the ground level, which positively impacts the local ecology in the long run.
5. We work with water hyacinth to create beautiful sustainable products. Water Hyacinth is an invasive water plant in the Volta River that has been negatively impacting the ecology of the river. In using this plant to create sustainable products, we are reducing the infestation in the river, improving biodiversity and providing sustainable incomes to the affected communities.
GHANA’S FIRST ECO-FRIENDLY PRODUCTION FACILITY
The Fair Trade Zone (FTZ), our new home also has a ton of eco-friendly features like the biogas digester, urine-diverting toilets, bamboo pillars, compressed earth blocks, and earth rendered walls. The Mamas at the Fair Trade Zone have also declared themselves as Eco-Mamas. Eco-Mamas are those who have pledged to reduce, reuse and recycle so that they can play their part in protecting the environment.
To provide us with energy at the FTZ, we intend to use renewable energies like solar and wind-generated power. Our biogas digester has been built and we hope that in the near future it’ll provide us with gas that’ll be used by the batikers and the papermakers. We love the creative challenge of working in an eco-friendly manner and being able to share it with our customers. We hope we’ve inspired you to find new ways to reduce, reuse and recycle in your everyday life!
