Patagonia, Inc., the outdoor gear and apparel company, in partnership with Teijin, a progressive fabric manufacturer in Japan, announced the launch of one of the first garment take-back recycling programs in the world. Through its Common Threads Recycling Program, customers can return worn-out long underwear to Patagonia, to be recycled into new garments.
Making new polyester fiber from used garments, that have been mailed from customers to Patagonia, results in an energy savings of 76 percent and a CO2 emissions reduction of 71 percent, versus creating that fiber from new raw material.
“Our goal is to take responsibility for every product we make. This includes responsibility for the fibers a garment is made of, as well as what happens to a product at the end of its useful life. Garment recycling is simply our first step towards a truly environmentally sound process,” explained Michael Crooke, president and CEO of Patagonia.
“We recognize that everything we make pollutes — and most of it eventually ends up in landfills. Moving forward, with our customers’ help, the 1.3 million Capilene pieces we sell each year will potentially live on in perpetuity.”
Effective September 12, 2005, customers may return used Capilene baselayers to Patagonia, via mail or at any of the 20 Patagonia retail stores nationwide. These worn-out baselayers will then be transported via container ships (which usually travel back to Asia empty) to Teijin’s recycling facilities in Japan. There they will be broken down and made into new Capilene garments using Teijin’s EcoCircle(TM) fiber-to-fiber recycling system. With EcoCircle, worn-out polyester garments are recycled into virgin-quality fibers by breaking down the fabric to the molecular level and creating new polyester raw material. Beginning in Spring 2007, Patagonia’s Capilene baselayers will be made with more than 50% recycled content, using garments collected from customers.
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