Levi’s Makes Jeans From Post-Consumer Cotton Waste

Repurposing garments has become a big trend in the fashion world today, and global jeanswear leader Levi Strauss & Co. is joining in this green campaign by creating jeans made from post-consumer cotton garment waste.

This latest innovation of Levi's and its partner Seattle-based textile technology startup, Evrnu, could be the future of green apparel manufacturing, seeking to address the problem of growing textile waste.

Both companies share the same vision of creating a circular economy that extends the life of cotton and eliminates waste by breathing new life into used clothing.

A prototype has been created out of five discarded cotton T-shirts. The result is a garment that uses 98% less water than what is required to make the same from virgin cotton. The jean prototype relies on a patent-pending recycling technology where discarded consumer wastes are converted in renewable fiber.

According to a press release by Evrnu, the US alone creates 13.1 million tons of textile waste, and 11 million tons of these end up in the landfills.

The biggest environmental footprint of cotton comes during its growing stage, which uses 68% of water used in the lifecycle of one pair of jeans. By reusing old materials, producers can completely eliminate the wasteful part of jeans production.

"By tackling water conservation through new fiber innovation, the apparel industry has the opportunity to significantly reduce its water footprint," Paul Dillinger, head of the global product innovation at Levi's, said in a press release about the prototype.

"As technologies such as Evrnu evolve over time, there will be greater opportunities to accelerate the pace of change towards a closed loop apparel industry," he added.

"Our aspiration is to build a pair of Levi's jeans that are just as beautiful and strong as the original and we're making great progress towards the goal," Evrnu CEO Stacy Flynn said in a news release.

Just recently, Levi's announced partnering with Econyl to create jeans from abandoned fishing nets.