Pulse Magazine
Spring 2017
Reuse. Reread. Recycle
Photo provided by Elizabeth Flading of Lur Apparel.
By Carson Lombardi
The massive amounts of plastic found in the ocean can now be viewed as raw material for clothing companies. Consumers are willing to underwrite the cost of this cutting edge new technology—turning recycled ocean plastic into wearable material—for the environmental and humanitarian benefits.
Every year, 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in our oceans, according to a February 2015 study conducted by UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. That is equivalent to five grocery bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world. Plastic-pollution.org estimates that the annual input is estimated to be twice that by 2025.
The Brands
This past fall, a unique Facebook campaign made waves among American young women. The company behind the campaign, The Girlfriend Collective, gave away their leggings for free; all consumers had to pay for was shipping. One could call the campaign a success due to a stellar marketing team, but The Girlfriend Collective is fairly unique in athleisure wear—their leggings are made of recycled ocean plastic.
The Girlfriend Collective is not alone in the pursuit of sustainable fashion, nor are they the first company to create fabric from plastic found in oceans. Major fashion brands like Levis and Adidas as well as lesser known brands like Lur Apparel are making major headway in the pursuit of sustainable fashion.
Most recently, Harry Potter star Emma Watson made headlines during her press tour for the 2017 live-action Beauty and the Beast film. Each and every piece of clothing and accessories that Watson wore during the tour was made of some type of recycled material, recycled ocean plastic included. She recently appeared on Ellen, Ellen Degeneres’ daytime talk show to explain:
“I started this Instagram account called The Press Tour and … it kind of chronicles this crazy challenge I set for myself which was to try to do the whole of my outfits for the tour as sustainably and ethically as I possibly could.”
Watson’s influence has brought awareness to the issue of sustainable clothing through this challenge, as she calls it.
“I’ve definitely noticed an increase in customers asking for stuff made from recycled fabric or plastic in the last few months.”
- Caitlin Lawlor, a retail worker in Brooklyn, New York.
Far before Watson shined a light on this increasingly popular manufacturing approach, Polartec became one of the first companies to put a major focus on creating textiles with new materials. In 1981 the company created synthetic fleece made from polyester rather than lamb’s wool, beginning the trend of rethinking what textiles are made of. Since Polar Fleece’s creation, Polartec has gone on to distribute their fabric to hundreds of brands and retailers who would otherwise be using animal wool to create their garments.
More recently, in 2013 Levis Strauss debuted its “Waste<Less” line, which boasts that each pair of jeans includes eight recycled bottles woven into the denim fabric. Additionally, the company announced last year that they would create the first ever pair of jeans from post-consumer cotton waste like old t-shirts.
Last fall, sportswear leader Adidas partnered with Parley for the Oceans, a company which “addresses major threats towards our oceans, the most important ecosystem of our planet.” Adidas and Parley released only 7,000 pairs of their first pair of sneakers made with recycled ocean plastic in November, but have pledged to sell another million in 2017. In March, in fact, Adidas and Parley released a limited-edition Stella McCartney sneaker made with the same material as their initial Parley sneaker.
Parley for the Oceans is no stranger to collaborations with major fashion brands. During 2014’s Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, recording artist and fashion designer Pharrell Williams debuted his collaboration with the company with the first denim line made from recycled ocean plastic fibers, the G-Star ‘RAW for the Oceans’ collection.
Lur Apparel, a 100 percent sustainable brand out of Cincinnati, Ohio, not only uses fabric made from recycled ocean plastic in their designs, but also utilizes recycled fabric scraps from textile plants to create new, exciting material.
Elizabeth Flading, a spokesperson for Lur Apparel said: “Our fabric is called Reparel—50 percent comes from pre-consumer cotton scraps from commercial apparel and textile facilities and the other 50 percent comes from post-consumer plastic bottles made into polyester.”
The Process
So, how does recycled ocean plastic end up in our clothes? How does it work? Well, each company has their own specific way of turning ocean plastic into fabric, but the general process is the same.
First, bottles are collected from the ocean and sorted based on numbered plastic designations. The Girlfriend Collective leggings, for instance, are made with #1 plastic, or polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the technical name for polyester yarn and fabrics.
Next, the bottles are cleaned and sorted and converted into plastic “chips,” tiny, chopped up pieces of clean, recycled plastic.
Then, the chips are melted and processed into long spaghetti-like strands. Those strands are chipped into pellets once again, heated, and pulled, much like taffy, into hair-like threads.
Finally, those thin threads are spun together to create a soft, sustainable, wearable yarn that clothing manufacturers utilize to create the clothing which eventually finds its way into consumers’ closets.
The Practices
These companies’ missions don’t stop with environmental consciousness, however. The majority of companies whose goals are to reduce the environmental impact of their clothing also place huge emphasis on fair labor practices in the factories which produce their sustainable material.
14 pairs of hands and eyes contribute to making each pair of The Girlfriend Collective’s leggings, according to the company’s press materials. Their factory is located in Taiwan, and their minimum wage is a whopping 125 percent of the local minimum wage for brand-new employees—and it only goes up from there.
Not only do they pay their workers well, but The Girlfriend Collective provides free catered breakfast and lunch for their factory workers, guided exercise breaks and free monthly health checkups at the factory for every employee.
Lur Apparel similarly contributes to fair labor practices in their factory in Guatemala. They created a program called Wear It Forward whose goal is to give back to the communities in which they operate.
“We think it’s important to give back. For each of the items bought online, we contribute 25 hours of vocational education to Guatemalan people in need. We’re not only conscious of the environment, but we’re conscious of the people making the clothes.”
- Ms. Flading
Each year, Lur Apparel donates funds to help women get loans to start their own businesses and further their education. They also work with various nonprofits in Guatemala to help train women in fields such as sewing, computer education, carpentry, welding and foot loom weaving.
“A sustainable sentiment shifts to one of increased social awareness and responsibility,” said Grace Faraj, Senior Vice President of Public Development and Sustainability at Nielsen, “Marketers need to connect messaging with the causes that matter most to consumers and that also align with their brand.”
Millennials in particular respond to this type of company. According to a recent Nielsen Global Survey of Social Responsibility and Sustainability, millennials continue to be the most willing to pay extra for sustainable options—nearly three out of four. 72 percent of respondents in Generation Z (those aged 15 to 20) responded the same way as well.
Chloé Durkin, 24, said of her Girlfriend Collective leggings:
“I try to buy most of my clothing from thrift stores these days to avoid contributing to the enormous environmental toll that fast fashion has on the world. But it’s hard to find decent workout clothes at second hand shops, so I was very happy to give my money to a brand that’s environmentally-conscious and has good labor practices. The price was also great, but now that I have the leggings and know they're great quality, I would probably pay full price for them in the future.”