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02/2009 - Recycled Textiles - Short Cuts to Fashion |
EcoTextile News
A recycled garment collection is not just
about garments made with recycled yarns. Here, Karla Magruder finds out
how some U.S. firms make clothes from the traditional second-hand
route.
The first thing that pops into most U.S. buyers’ heads with the mention
of recycled textiles is Wellman’s EcoSpun yarn, first developed in
1993. Together with Patagonia, they created the world’s first fleece
garment made from recycled soda bottles.
Since then, many improvements have been made with fine deniers, more
consistent polymers, and the inclusion of pre-consumer waste. This has
all led to more appealing fabrics, but the real excitement in recycling
comes from entirely different recycling streams, where both designers
and textile recyclers are taking short cuts to the latest fashions.
So what about these short cuts? First, let’s talk trash. Individually,
we throw away textiles in the form of old clothes and linens and in the
apparel business; there is all kinds of waste throughout the textile
chain – from weaving and knitting to scraps on the cutting room floor.
Martex Fiber Southern Corp. has been cleaning up the cutting room floor
for over 35 years. Currently, it has facilities in both the U.S. and
Central America, where its recycling system takes advantage of garment
and textile manufacturing facilities’ waste products. Stefanie Zeldin,
Director of Marketing and Sustainability for Martex Fiber Southern
Corp. (MFSC) told us: “the largest part of our business is in shoddy
fiber, which goes into fill products and nonwovens.” But some of the
more difficult types of waste that MFSC recycles is the seam waste from
sewing t-shirts together and toe clippings from the sock making
process, which are then ‘refiberized’ back into fluff.
Part of the MFSC family of companies is Jimtex Yarns, sold under the
ECO2cotton® brand. These fibers have been made by combining their
recycled cotton and blending with synthetic fibers for strength. Ms.
Zeldin went on to say that “recycled blue cotton t-shirt turns back
into fluff, which is then spun into new blue yarn.” Steps missing from
typical yarn production are growing, ginning, spinning and dyeing,
which creates significant environmental savings. Interestingly, though,
cut and sew waste is becoming hard to get as the apparel industry has
become more aware of the cost of waste to both the bottom line and the
environment. Still, there are plenty of textiles in the U.S. waste
stream. According to the EPA, more than 11.9 million tons of textile
waste was created in 2007 from pre- and post-consumer waste.
To read the entire article, please visit www.ecotextile.com .
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