Patagonia Introduces Recycled Clothing
Patagonia‘s Re\\\collection is as close as it will get to being made out of 100% recycled materials. The complete collection includes ten styles – counting both men and women’s clothing. The design style of the clothing is true to Patagonia’s look – tailored, yet comfortable. However, the collection’s pieces are 100% reused down, wool and polyester while the zippers, labels and buttons are anywhere between 50 to 80% reclaimed material.
Sourcing its’ used down from a company that collects, cleans and treats feathers from old duvets and pillows, Patagonia is using everything that can be produced by their suppliers. However, sourcing their threads, wool and polyester is a completely different story. As explained by Patagonia, secondhand materials do not have the same strength and performance as firsthand materials would have. This poses a very slow process, where majority of the work needs to be completed by humans – not machines. Human knowledge of pulling out specific materials is time-consuming.
The Council of Textile Recycling would love to incorporate a labeling system, such as putting in an RFID tag that would contain all the garment’s material details, which could make it instantly sort-able when it landed at it’s final destination before being purchased (along with pulling it into a second or third life).
With the name that Patagonia has in the industry, this would help other companies move towards focusing on using recycled materials for their clothing.
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