MONGREL SOCKS DOING THE RIGHT THING

In our own small way we endeavor to do the right thing environmentally and ethically. We source the majority of our yarn from Schoeller Spinning Group. Thier 20.5 micron Superwash Zefir is 2nd to none when it comes to quality and consistancy. The Climawool* they produce in the best we have found for replicating the qualities of Pure Wool but also adding a lightness and longevity making this a true high performance yarn. Their hard won G.O.T.S and Blue Sign (see below)certification demonstrates their commitment to getting it right for the planet too.
In our workshop we are committed to improving our manufacturing practises to minimise our impact on the environment.

•     We employ natural drying processes rather than power hungry methods.
•     We collect and use rain water. Minimising unnecessary waste.
•     Using skylights to provide lightiing for 90% of our workshop needs.
•     We have a tree planting program in place, re-introducing endemic trees our 9 acre property, and making it a haven again for native wildlife. In our 5th year both the 500 trees and wildlife are thriving.
•     We don't crop or till our acreage, gaining carbon capture and soil structure improvement.
  
•     We recycle our cardboard and re-use for forwarding where possible.
•     We re-use as much plastic as we can and forward for recycling the rest.
  
•     We further reduce our carbon footprint by working from a home base, and minimising our necessary vehicle movements by planning ahead multi-stop single trips than many one purpose trips, with our fuel miser car.
•     LPG fuelled delivery vehicle - cleaner emissions
•     We use natural soy based dyes for our printing and our labels are printed on paper that is 65% recycled.
•     Our POS plasticbags are 100% recycled and 100% biodegradable.
•     Our mantra - re-use, reduce, recycle and re-birth.
•     We are a family friendly employer. Understanding the delicate work/life balance that is necessary to get the best out of our employee’s, enabliing our employee’s to get the best out of us. Flexiblity, communication, and appreciation is the key.
•     Our use of Possum fur blended yarns encourages the ecologically sustainable solution to NZ Australian Brushtail Possum feral infestation.

G.O.T.S.
These four letters identify those products which are produced in such a way as to fulfil the ecological criteria of the “Internationalen Verbandes der Naturtextilien e.V. (IVN)” (International Association Natural Textiles Industry). The key aspects of this standard, amongst others, are a sustainable production, upholding social responsibility as well as the exclusive use of non-harmful materials in the dye works. www.naturtextil.com
Bluesign
This certification guarantees the highest possible exclusion of damaging substances as well as ensuring the highest quality and functionality. Bluesign is a sign that the worldwide strict EHS criteria (consumer protection, water emissions, air emissions, industrial health and safety, resource efficiency) are being kept to.  www.bluesign.com

Mongrel tree's

We've have just ordered another 50 endemic tree's to plant on our rural property. We've been planting out our 9 acre's of nude hill with natives for the last few years-hoping in someway to offset the carbon footprint our business-Mongrel sock making creates. We've lost count of how many we've put in but numbers in the hundreds. The tree's are planted as seedling's, most not much more than six inches tall, now many of them are up to 3 metre's. We started planting out the property round the boundries, that done, we're moving in. Needing to keep the new planting watered, we've elected not to water the house garden-so have lost a few ornamental's but really haven't lost nearly as much as we thought we would. It is truely delightful to see the native fauna, furry, feathered and scaley, making themselves at home and thriving. Since we eradicated the latest feral cat invasion, the variety of bird life has exploded. We have a small water trough near the house, just off the verandah, which is a busy spot in the morning's and early evening's. A lovely place to start and finish our Mongrel Sock making day's. It's where we do most of our business planning, phone calls and meetings-it a hard life, eh? Kind of nice to be doing the right thing for the environment, and reaping the benefit's.

Growing Socks

Being humble Tasmanian sock makers, making our ever so humble Mongrel Socks, without delusions of grandeur. It’s a bit hard to harbour pretensions in the cold, hard light of the work shop. What you see is what you get, and what you do is what you’ve done. We not only aspire to make a humble living, we also aspire to do things right. Right for us, right for our customers and right for the world around us.
I’ve written before about our tree planting program, endeavouring to offset our carbon footprint-that’s all good. It’s something we’re proud of. We’ve now got hundreds of trees planted, and they’re thriving. It’s all well and good to plant a few trees, but what really counts is that they survive. It’s only in those future” growing” years that our local environment will reap the benefits of neutralizing our carbon emissions. This doesn’t just happen; it takes care and attention, and a bit of elbow grease. It is hard work manually planting trees. Back breaking, and self satisfying work, and that’s only the beginning. To give our tree’s the best chance possible chance of survival, we need to mulch and water regularly in the early days, and keep a watch on rainfall later, to see that get what they need to thrive, and thru summer-survive. We have rain water collection, with lots of storage, and try not to be frivolous with it. Plenty of water means plenty of weeds, so they have to be dealt with. I suppose we could go the nuke method, but hey, we don’t really want to work with toxic chemicals if we can avoid it. So, elbows again, pulling the weeds requiring attention 2-3 times a year. It’s do-able.
So, as the years roll by, our tree’s get bigger, the native creatures flourish, we’ve got tangible evidence that our crack at environmental responsibility has not been a waste of time. If we can do it, anyone can.

A good honest living!

Working from home is great, I'd highly recommend it. When we first stumbled across possibility of making a home based living, we wanted not only to minimise the impact of work to our lifestyle, we wanted something that wouldn't impact badly on the world around us too. We were actively seeking our own small business so we could dictate our own work conditions, ethics, hours etc. Our reality is we need to earn a living, not to accumulate wealth but to live comfortably and honestly. With Mongrel Socks we found our niche! Ten years on, we haven't looked back. Starting our business from scratch was a challenge! But it was great to have ultimate control. Early on we made many mistakes, but learnt(sometimes painfully) from each one. One thing we did learn early was, that many decisions we make impact far wider than just us. Particularly our work practices. We have tried to always reduce waste in both materials and time, we recycle as much as we can. We re-use the majority of our packaging materials. We use natural lighting and drying processes. Minimise vehicle movements, and run LPG in our delivery van. As business owners we know we need to keep our costs down, and we have found that with care, we have been not only able to reduce the impact that our business has on our local environment but this has also kept our costs down. Yay! One thing we are very proud of is our tree planting program, we have planted upwards of 200 multi species endemic trees on our 9 acre property, and will continue until we can't fit any more. This is our small contribution to minimising the impact of our carbon footprint on our local environment. Our property is located on the outskirts of the city, backing on to bushland, the urban sprawl is ever encroaching. If in some small way we can foster an environment that is a safe haven to the many types of native animals we have here in Tasmania, when their natural habitat is not under threat from us or any thing we do in their backyard, we'll consider that an environmental job well done!