THE MOST SOCIALLY AND ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE BUTTON YOU CAN THINK OF

THE MOST SOCIALLY AND ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE BUTTON YOU CAN THINK OF

THE MOST SOCIALLY AND ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE BUTTON YOU CAN THINK OF

Guest Article by Ignacio Alejandro Maya

-Corozo buttons are a large-high-quality, long lasting and earth-pleasant alternative for your clothes-

Sustainability is not just a pattern, but a necessary stage. Customers are progressively mindful of what they use, try to eat, consume, use and who they get it from, so businesses are re-evaluating their price chains, resources they use, traceability, manufacturing expectations and ethics guiding each individual product and assistance.


How do we make the manner and clothes field much more respectful of culture and the environment? It may well feel like change took time, but absolutely it is by means of constant and systematic actions that it is happening.

Image courtesy of Trafino


Most providers are likely to stick with regular polyester (plastic) buttons that occur from fossil fuels, which are a bit less expensive but have a damaging effects on the natural environment. Even the so-termed recycled polyester buttons use a higher percentage of virgin product, call for sizeable amounts of energy and create a large amount of negative squander. When the impact of a modest button may perhaps not look significant, substantial quantities generate noticeable environmental outcomes.


Corozo, or tagua buttons as we know them in Ecuador, are made from a nut that grows wild in Ecuador’s tropical forests. When tender, the nut is liquid and can be drunk by humans. It is quite related to ivory thus, it is also named vegetable ivory. Grows on palm trees and, when experienced, falls to the floor to be sustainably collected by 1000’s of rural neighborhood customers as a signifies of subsistence. These persons turn into the greatest guardians of the forest that provides them an profits. Nuts then go into the hands of hundreds of artisans to be skilfully transformed into blanks, a person by 1, pure custom.


With 33 decades of expertise, TRAFINO S.A. is the world’s leading company in the export of corozo blanks. TRAFINO acquires the blanks of unique measurements from additional than 500 artisans – a huge aspect becoming women of all ages -, performs high-quality controls and exports to button makers in far more than 20 international locations, who give the complete -structure- to the item and provide to vogue brands. As a make a difference of reality, corozo buttons are not anything new, prior to plastic took about the market, again in the 1940s, a major element of the buttons manufactured in the earth had been corozo, like these of the Usa Army´s uniform, and have been applied due to the fact about the 1850s.

Photograph courtesy of Trafino

Why choose a corozo button?

  • 100% purely natural, sustainable, planet-helpful

  • Biodegradable, natural, renewable, recyclable

  • Vegan, no animal cruelty

  • Combines design and style and craftsmanship

  • Adaptable, can be lasered, any design can be made

  • Resistant to washing, dry cleaning and ironing

  • Different to polyester (plastic) buttons and other natural buttons that can harm the surroundings

  • Non-poisonous – kid secure

  • Can be used in its purely natural white color or dyed to any colour (dye to match)

  • At microscopic level, corozo is composed of quite tightly wound organic and natural fibres that give the substance excellent durability and scratch resistance, contributing to circularity in vogue. Its porous nature enables colors to penetrate deep into the area, producing it an excellent materials for dyeing. Corozo is also very well regarded for its tasteful normal grain.

TRAFINO created the NGO Permanently LUNG


TRAFINO created the NGO Forever LUNG to safeguard tropical forests the place corozo palms expand wild, by working with each other with communities & artisans. The Ecuadorian Ministry of Setting awarded TRAFINO the “Green Initiative Prize” for marketing the rainforests conservation through a sustainable management of corozo.


TRAFINO and For good LUNG are performing with community universities in the exploration and setting up of a task to restore the buffer zones of tropical forests working with native corozo palms and thus help the forest to recuperate and regain area. In this article are some qualities of the corozo palm tree:

  • Corozo palms have many biological interactions with pollinating insects, 1000’s arrive during flowering time, as nicely as with wild forest animals, mainly rodents and compact mammals.

  • Corozo palms are an plentiful and typically dominant species in the framework of the tropical forest. For this reason, if we shield corozo palms, we preserve the complete forest and its interactions.

  • Due to the substantial manufacturing of natural and organic make a difference (large leaves, inflorescences and big infructescence), Corozo palms have a significant rate of carbon fixation.

  • Corozo palms protect against erosion and lead to soil formation.

  • Corozo palms encourage the “milking of clouds”, sustaining humidity in forests.

  • Corozo is an crucial cultural factor in the identification of Ecuadorians.

Photograph courtesy of Trafino

TRAFINO is also functioning with The United Nations Small Grants Method, The German Cooperation (GIZ), the IRD (French Institute of Investigation for Improvement), federal government establishments and other NGOs to fortify and guidance corozo gathering communities, safeguard forests and consider treatment of corozo palm trees. TRAFINO is also a member of the Incredibly hot PALM project http://bioinca.org/hotpalm-task/


Corozo is not only the greatest sustainable alternate for style and apparel industry in conditions of style and toughness, but also has a helpful environmental and social ingredient. By changing plastic with corozo buttons, brands add to trying to keep tropical forests standing, decreasing the carbon footprint of the manner market, curbing world wide warming, amid many other positive aspects that this excellent story delivers. Assistance us distribute the word.

Guest Writer Bio

With 22 several years of experience operating with Corozo, Ignacio Alejandro Maya is Government President of TRAFINO S.A., a major enterprise with more than 3 decades exporting this useful resource of Ecuadorian biodiversity. Passionate about this noble substance, he has two Majors in Business Administration and Agribusiness and 2 Minors in Psychology and English from Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador. In addition to a Diploma in Task Management from the Tecnológico de Monterrey, headquarters Toluca, Mexico. Founding member and Executive Director of the Permanently LUNG Basis made to operate alongside one another with local communities to defend forests where by corozo grows wild and, by way of sustainable management of this product, contribute to improving upon the good quality of daily life of people who collect the nuts and the hundreds of artisans concerned in the distribution chain.

Connection to website: https://trafino.net/

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