Recycled Clothes: Glad Rags from Trash Bags

David Byrne of Talking Heads fame once wrote that shaking one's rump is to to be environmentally aware. That awareness can be extended to how one covers one's rump, too. Or head. Or feet. Or just about any part of the human body.

No one knows that better than Patagonia of Ventura, CA, which has achieved phenomenal success with its line of fleece products, called Post Consumer Recycled (PCR) Synchilla, made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), or recycled plastic soda pop bottles. Last year, Patagonia estimates it used eight million two-liter soda bottles to produce its line of Synchilla sweaters, pullovers, jackets and pants.

The success of PCR fleece products has been followed by other kinds of PCR fabrics. Ellington Rucksack of Portland, OR, uses a PCR fabric called Ecospun for its recycled series which includes a rucksack, travel bag and over-the-shoulder wallet. "It's a really nice heavy fabric, sort of like a canvas material," says Ellington's president Alecia Elsasser. "It's a polyester but it doesn't have that polyester sheen to it."

One rich source of environmentally correct threads is Real Goods, a mail order outfit located in Ukiah, CA. "Our product line includes what we call 'earth-friendly' products," says Real Goods ecodesk coordinator Karen Hensley. "Anything made of recycled materials falls into that category so we promote green clothing."

The Real Goods catalog includes ties made of hemp and recycled rubber t-shirts made of recycled and organically-grown cotton and colored with natural dyes, pullovers made from recycled plastic from pop bottles and a line of shoes made entirely from recycled products and sustainably harvested materials from the rain forest.

A line of green footwear is also offered by Merrell Footwear of Burlington, VT. Among the Merrell offerings are outdoor sandals made from recycled tires, a sort of variation on the Mexican huarache. "A real section of tire tread is used for the outsole," explains Merrell sales rep Stewart McCormack. "Everybody will have a different tread pattern with a 40,000-mile warranty."

Merrell also makes a light hiking shoe with a reground rubber outsole and uppers dyed with water-based dyes, and industrial-strength sneakers with uppers of Eco-Fibre, a 100 percent recycled cotton canvas, and a Texon insole made of recycled materials.

In addition to making wearables from recycled materials, green clothiers are looking to natural fibers that are less stressful to the environment, fibers such as organic cotton and hemp.

According to Maggie's Organic Products of Mill Valley, CA, cotton is a natural target for greening because it is estimated that twice the amount of environment-damaging chemicals is used to grow cotton than on all other US crops combined. The company says those chemicals contaminate water supplies in more than 38 states, make the soil infertile and allow the earth to erode seven times faster than nature intended.

On the other hand, cotton grown organically is cultivated in harmony with nature, says Maggie's president Jennifer Mueller. "Nothing goes into the growing process of organic cotton that is detrimental to air, soil or water," she says. "In 500 years, the soil that grows organic cotton will be as fertile or more fertile than it is now." She adds, "In conventional cotton growing, the soil becomes unfertile. The soil can't produce plant life without chemicals."

Maggie's not only grows organic cotton, but sells a line of socks, t- shirts, pants, shorts, and skirts made from the fabric.

How cotton is processed is as devastating to the environment as how it is grown. The processing of cotton into clothing entails the use of toxic bleaching, dying and antiwrinkle agents that also foul the environment.

Allegro Natural Dyes of Longmont, CO, has a totally non-toxic process for natural dyeing. "That's not true of the way natural dyes have historically been done," says President Sally Gurley. That's because natural dyers still use toxic chemicals as reagents, or mordants, to fix the dye to the cloth, she explains. She says that Allegro's process is so clean, that the dye house it set up in Colorado produces effluents that do directly to drain without filters. "That's unheard of in a dye house," she says.

Allegro's dyes are produced from renewable plant and insect resources cultivated organically. The company gets its yellows from osage, which comes from wood of the Bodark tree; blues from the indigo bush; orange, peach and rust from the root of the madder plant; browns from cutch, which comes from the heartwood of the catechu tree; and reds and purples from cochineal insects, a cactus parasite found in South America.

Like organic cotton, hemp has garnered the attention of green garb designers. "Hemp is definitely making a comeback as a fabric," says Yitzac Goldstein, who is in new product development at Hemp Textiles International in Bellingham, WA.

A wide assortment of items made of hemp are now being sold, including hats, shirts, vests, jackets, pants, blazers, shoes, backpacks and briefcases.

Goldstein notes that hemp is especially attractive to U.S. farmers because, unlike cotton, it can be grown in all 50 states, not just the South.

In addition, the plant is hardy--it has practically no natural predators. It doesn't need herbicides because its leaf structure chokes off sunlight to weeds trying to grow beneath it. It has a deep tap root which helps prevent soil erosion. And it is continually shedding leaves which restores many of the nutrients it takes out of the soil.

Although it's never a good idea to be a slave to fashion, that might now be the case for environmental fashion. Green clothiers are showing that clothing can make more than a fashion statement; it can make an environmental statement as well.