Woven Wide

Woven Wide

Facts About Non Woven Totes

In recent years, non-woven polypropylene totes have grown to become one of the industry's fastest selling product lines. Indeed, as one of the hottest products available, you can find many different types of totes and silhouettes using this material.  In finding the best tote options, there is actually quite a lot to know about polypropylene– how it's made, its physical characteristics, eco-characteristics – just to name a few. And indeed there can be vast differences in the many polypropylene totes available to you.

What Is Polypropylene?
Simply put, polypropylene is a form of plastic. It's available in a wide variety of forms but is essentially a flexible resin polymer. While the formal chemical name for the material is polypropylene, the generic layman's term is "non-woven" simply because it's really a large sheet of plastic and not a woven fabric. The material has been debossed to give it the appearance of woven cloth, yet it is really a non-woven material.

How It's Made
Making polypropylene involves a process called "extrusion". Small polypropylene pellets are injected into an extrusion machine and mixed with color concentrate. As the material moves through the extruder, it goes through several chemical and heat processes. At the end, the result is a wide, flat material which gets debossed to give it a cloth look. The material is then spooled onto large rolls.

Eco-Friendly
A large part of polypropylene's appeal involves its eco-friendly characteristics. Many such totes contain recycled content, are reusable so they eliminate the use of other plastic bags, and can generally be recycled at the end of their life span. During the manufacturing process, some suppliers reclaim their production waste because it can be reused in the next production run. Some suppliers have chosen not to do this. All polypropylene is generally 100% recyclable when the user is through with it. Polypropylene is rated a "5" on the Society of Plastics Industry's (SPI) spectrum of recycled codes. A note about "recycled content" claims: All polypropylene totes that claim to have 100% recycled content can only be black. The claim can not be made for colors. That's because the reclaimed material being recycled consists of all shades and tints and is not separated by color. The resulting color when extruded is a very unattractive mesh of darkened gray, brown, and black. Therefore, an amount of black color concentrate is added to give the material a consistent, even color tone.  

About the Author

Polly maintains an eco-friendly packaging blog, where she shares information about reusable bags, recycling, and more.

Where can one buy embroidered Tyrolean-style trim (sometimes called braid or ribbon, has a woven-in design)?

Specifically, I'm looking for something 1" to 2" wide tan and dark brown with a woodsy-looking design such as deer and pine trees. This type of trim was quite popular and easily available 40 or 50 years ago, but today it seems nearly impossible to find. I want to make myself a perfect jacket to replace one had and lost many years ago.

Hmmm...take a look at Renaissance Ribbons. They have a huge selection and many wider ribbons in timeperiod styles. If they don't have anything email them to see if they can help you out. They have AMAZING stuff.

Also check eBay...there are many good ribbon sellers out there who are also very willing to help find what you need.

Woven Hand - Your Russia (Without Hands)