Saitex is one of the world's premium factories known for sustainable production — and we got a private tour:
Author:Whitney BauckPublish date:Jul 24, 2019Updated onJul 24, 2019Welcome to our series Factory Tour, where we take you inside the manufacturing facilities of some of our favorite brands to find out how the clothes we buy are actually made. Next up: Saitex, an innovative, sustainability-focused factory that produces denim for brands like Everlane and Madewell.
Since its founding, Saitex has grown to accommodate five different facilities and now employs over 4,500 people and produces 20,000 pairs of jeans a day. Along the way, it's collected a lengthy list of ethics-centric certifications: Fair Trade, Oeko-Tex, LEED, Bluesign, the Higg Index and B Corp have all given Saitex their stamp of approval.
The Saitex mill, which should be up and running by 2020, is being built to LEED specifications and will be "fully covered in solar panels" that will be used to power the machinery. 6,000 trees are being planted in the adjacent lot to offset the plant's carbon emissions, and Rollando hopes that by designing fabric directly with brands, Saitex will be able to minimize excessive fabric finishing processes that can be harmful to the environment.
All of that's in the future for now, as it's not yet commercially available in pieces that come out of Saitex. But it's just one of the ways Saitex is working to expand its sustainability cred. There's a lot of work that goes into giving your jeans a worn-in look before you buy them, and if the factory is using manual abrasion to accomplish that look, then fabric that will become an outside pocket needs to be pre-ground before it's sewn onto the back of your jeans. Otherwise, the grinding process could wear down the stitches affixing the pocket to the garment.
After jeans are sewn and pass through quality control, they're ready to be treated and finished. This part of the process looks wildly different depending on the style — some brand partners want to bring customers jeans that look so worn they could be vintage, while others might opt for fewer finishing processes.
It all comes down to water. Saitex uses an ETP system for cleaning the water that passes through its facilities. The system combines reverse osmosis, bacteria nanofiltration and evaporation that cleans water so thoroughly that it can be totally reused in a closed-loop system. Two percent of Saitex's water is lost through evaporation, but every other drop of it can be reused.
Saitex also has machines that can perform manual sanding and grinding, taking over work that's less than pleasant for humans. People are still needed to teach the machines how to sand every new style, which means that their jobs aren't being totally eliminated, but they're required to do less of the physical labor.
Like any sustainability-centric fashion company worth its salt, Saitex has caught onto the buzz around circularity and is trying to take more responsibility for the products it creates after they've outlived their initial purpose. Bahl has invested in Atelier & Repairs, a brand dedicated to upcycling clothing, to try and extend the life of any garment that comes out of Saitex. In the past Saitex has also collaborated with brands like Puma to create shoes made from denim scraps.
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