Origins of The White Pebble

Jeremy, how did The White Pebble get started?

Nolana and I have been buying organic foods for a long time, and we started to search for other products made with health, quality and the environment in mind. In our research, we discovered that cotton is one of the most widely produced crops in the world and is typically treated with a significant amount of chemicals. We also found that buying clothing made with organic or sustainable materials can be confusing. We started The White Pebble to educate the public and to provide a convenient, quality shopping experience for people who are interested in buying organic clothes they can wear for work, school and play.

What does The White Pebble mean? How did you pick the name?

We discovered an Eastern belief that we collect and carry with us black or white pebbles based on the choices we make throughout life. Our collection of pebbles symbolizes the quality of our choices and the legacy we leave. Black pebbles indicate self-focused, irresponsible decisions while white pebbles represent a life of sound, ethical choices. The White Pebble was founded to offer an ethical choice for everyday fashion.

Why do you believe organic clothing is as important for health as organic food? How are the two linked?

Because your skin is your largest and most porous organ in your body, we believe care should be exercised when deciding what to put up against it. The chemicals used to grow traditionally processed cotton are known carcinogens and pollute our soil, air and waterways. Since cotton crops are usually rotated with other crops to maintain basic soil quality, and peanuts are one of the most common crops to rotate, so traditionally grown peanuts are starting in fields already doused in chemicals. So organic cotton fields also mean organic produce fields.

What is the impact of traditionally-made clothes?

It takes 1/3 a pound of chemicals to product the one pound of traditional cotton needed to make a single tee shirt. Also, cotton seed is used in other food products we consume as well as in feed for livestock that produce a variety of product we eat. There are around 50 billion pounds of cotton harvested annually, which means that there were nearly 17 billion pounds of chemicals used for cotton alone in 2007, minus the .03% of crops that are certified organic. Buying organic cotton helps stimulate demand for removing chemicals from the entire process and the result will be an increase in production from farmers around the world.

What makes the tee shirts you make and offer different and significant?

We found that there are many 100% organic cotton tee shirts available, but nearly all of them are printed on with traditional, toxic screen printing inks. We searched for quite some time and finally found a local, San Diego company that uses environmentally-friendly, non-toxic inks and cleaners. The White Pebble’s proprietary Think-About-It-Tee collection holds a great message for us to be live in the present while being mindful of the future. It also makes a great, matching parent-child set.

Tags: eco friendly fashion, green fashion, non-toxic ink, organic cotton