It’s no secret that we buy more clothes than we can actually use. Americans alone toss out more than 13 million tons of clothing annually, but even if you’re donating your garments to a charitable organization, they could still be destined for a landfill. Such effects of fast fashion have driven apparel to the number two polluting industry in the world.
But textile and apparel manufacturers have been taking note of the environmental imperative created by fashion’s resource drain. Many upstream companies have begun implementing greener standards before most people have started to demand them. A big difficulty for manufacturers though is creating a more sustainable product without increasing the cost to end consumers who might not understand why they’re paying more.
Many upstream producers, like Artistic Fabric & Garment Industries in Pakistan are stepping up to reduce the impact of their business. AFGI’s latest effort aims to “close the cycle” by transforming those post-consumer waste (PCW) garments before they hit the landfill and recycle them into cotton fibers.
Their PCW recycling system can process up to 1,700 pounds of denim fabric per hour, which can then be spun and woven back in with new cotton for completely new jeans. We had a firsthand tour with the system’s designer, Ampelio Del Lago, which you can view above.
“PCW is one way that we can save cotton and recover all the wastages from the market.” Del Lago explains, “We buy garments that are ready to throw in the garbage. We take the fabric and there are six different steps of shredding that, one by one, open it from a simple fabric to a loose fiber at the end.”
The grinding and cutting of the enormous machine is nearly deafening, but small windows reveal its inner workings. Giant grinding gears transform the whole denim panels from the original jeans into light and fluffy cotton.
“This is then blended with virgin cotton, which has the opportunity to make one yarn that is sustainable, mixing 30 percent in the warp.” Del Lago concedes, “We cannot make a yarn that is 100 percent [PCW], the fiber is too short and the yarn was having a lot of breakages.” Such breakages would lead to weaker finished garments that would degrade even sooner in the hands of the consumer. The blended yarns, however, are practically indistinguishable.
To read the full story, visit http://www.triplepundit.com/2017/11/new-life-denim-post-consumer-waste-jeans/.