Levi’s Wants to Recycle Your Jeans
Every second of every single day, a rubbish truck’s price of textiles discover their manner into world landfills. Garments product of pure materials like cotton biodegrade in a number of weeks or months, however artificial materials comparable to polyester—a plastic derived from petroleum—would possibly take two or extra centuries to interrupt down.
To preserve its denims out of the trash, Levi’s has spent the previous decade growing clothes product of recycled fibres that may be recycled once more on the finish of its life. The Circular 501 denims, unveiled final yr, are a reimagining of the model’s iconic 501s—worn by John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe and Henry Rollins alike. Made from natural cotton, wooden pulp and repurposed textiles, the denims are 100 per cent recyclable.
To obtain this, Levi’s labored with Swedish textile-recycling firm Renewcell. Its course of entails stripping out zippers, buttons, garment labels and different non-recyclables from clothes and mechanically shredding the remaining materials. Then comes chemical recycling, through which cotton and cellulose fibres are dissolved right into a pulp proprietarily named Circulose. That product will be blended with different fibres to create issues like, say, 501 denims.
Only sure fibres will be recycled—specifically, cotton and varieties of cellulose, like lyocell and modal. Herein lies a serious hurdle: blended materials. “One of the challenges with circularity is that you can’t have it all,” says Paul Dillinger, the pinnacle of world product innovation at Levi Strauss & Co. For instance, Levi’s nonetheless makes some kinds with stretchy elastane, which destroys their circularity. “I wish they didn’t exist, but the customer loves them,” Dillinger says.
Even 100 per cent recyclable cotton clothes have vital environmental impacts: Much of the world’s cotton is produced in locations battling water shortage. In India—the world’s high cotton producer—it takes 22,500 litres of water to make one kilogram of cotton, and the denim dyeing and washing course of consumes hundreds extra. Then there are the impacts of the pesticides used to develop cotton. Also in India, two in 5 cotton farmers have skilled pesticide poisoning prior to now yr.
Nora Eslander, head of communications at Renewcell, says enhancing circularity within the vogue trade will depend on a number of key components: manufacturers committing to higher supplies and designing for end-of-life; governments stepping up efforts to fund and promote textile recycling; and clothing-recycling initiatives getting sufficient help to scale quickly.
Consumers additionally have to be invested in shopping for clothes that’s price retaining for longer, says Levi’s Dillinger. Achieving that takes the willpower to withstand a great sale and the resolve to put money into better-quality gadgets. “501s should be in your wardrobe for about 10 years—and they’re probably still good even longer.”
