Dried nuts will be used to replace the plastic buttons. Howies, the famous environmental products company recent come up with the idea.
In order to solve the plastic waste problem, the ethical Welsh company begins to use tagua nuts to be the buttons on the clothes. The nuts come from a certain kind of palm tree called Phytelephas Macrocarpa in South America. After gathered and dried out for four to eight weeks, these nuts will be selected and cut carefully, to be prepared to sew on the clothes.
As nature and non-toxic as just-picked-up from the tree, the nuts are thought to be the perfect environmentally-sound products for clothes-making. A lot of them have been sewn on to tops, trousers and jackets for the coming summer season.
Howies was bought by Timberland early this year. The takeover didn’t change its original aim and helped to put plans into action better. The company still has passion on being the pioneer of producing environment friendly clothes as well as giving part of its turnover to environmental and social projects.
Besides dried nuts, Howies is also starting to use other materials for replacement, such as to introduce hemp into its jeans to please vegan customers, for some vegans may allergy to the leather patch at the pack of jeans.
One of the biggest actions of Howies is to open up a printmaker in the abandoned shed on its property, Ceredigion. The previous one was in Turkey.
An open letter to Welsh First Minister about making Wales the first organic country in the world is Howies’ recent emprise. It says “The idea is to make all foods produced in Wales organic. That’s right, convert the whole country.”