Recycling of Jeans ~ Katja News

[Circular fashion] Recycling denim cloth for jeans and then renting - "dirty jeans" to create a sustainable cycle model for the fashion industry CSR environmental protection fashion case 2019.04.23

Having a "Daning" item is a wild favorite. However, the manufacturing process of tannins is still gambling, chemical pesticides and water pollution, labor supply in the supply chain, and physical injuries. But a Dutch B-type company, Mud Jeans, uses laser and ozone technology to improve environmental pollution and labor safety and health damage in the process, and to improve energy efficiency; more importantly, to reduce unrestricted consumption. The behavior is changed to the sharing system. Consumers can rent jeans that are made of denim every month. They can also, choose to buy back at the end of the lease, or return it so that the fashion industry under the circular economy can truly play the role of a fashion leader!

Text: Type B Enterprise Association

For many of us, buying large-scale production and cheap clothing may be a small and cheap mind; just a few hundred pieces, from the jacket to the lower body to meet the infinite desire of our exterior decoration. But this kind of consumer culture has had a huge impact on the environment.

The first is chemical pollution. The international environmental group Green Peace announced the “Detox Catwalk” project in 2011, urging global fashion brands to take action against the use of hazardous chemicals and ban are perfluorinated. Compounds (PFCs) and alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEOs).

Then, according to the CNBC report, the British Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee published a report on the sustainability of the fashion industry, showing that people's unrestricted desire for fashion has caused harm to the earth. These materials are thought-provoking, including the 2015 global fashion industry. The manufacturing process produced an equivalent of 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, exceeding the sum of shipping and international flights. Besides, the EU said in 2017 that the EU textile industry produces about 16 million tons of waste each year.

Compared with traditional linear economic thinking and practices, there are many people of insight around the world who are advocating a circular economy and putting it into practice. Among them, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation published a survey report in 2017, pointing out that the fashion industry provides comfortable goods and hundreds of millions of jobs in the world, but it is a pity that the industry Lack of valuable economic opportunities: the value of more than $500 billion is lost every year, because clothes are rarely worn by consumers who buy them, and rarely reused effectively.

Besides, it is the fashion industry's practice of compressing costs, putting pressure on suppliers, pollution of raw materials and pesticides, and chemicals and water pollution in the manufacturing process, which are extremely harmful to society and the environment. Since global apparel sales are expected to increase five-fold by 2050 if the industry is still not changing habits, then people on this planet may be affected by catastrophic destruction. Therefore, it is imperative to promote the transformation of the circular economy of the textile industry and to construct a "textile innovation ecosystem":

1. Change the way clothing is designed, sold and used to avoid increased use of textile materials at one time.

2. With the design of the garment, it facilitates the collection of the back end and the post-disposal treatment to improve the recycling method.

3. Effective use of resources and put them into production regeneration, which is the market development of secondary materials

In such a business plan design, the goods re-enter the the economy after use and will never become waste.

Also, the global fashion industry business media The business of Fashion (BoF) and McKinsey consultants co-authored the "2019 global fashion industry trend forecast report", from the big environment, consumers, industry and other aspects of the analysis, exploring the fashion industry Change and worry, and make predictions.

Among them, the concept of consumer ownership of goods is different from the past. With the development of leasing business model and sharing mode, the life cycle of fashion products becomes more and more flexible, and the ownership of clothing is no longer single and permanent. Consumers’ desire for diversity, sustainability, and affordability drives a the shift in ownership patterns, with consumers choosing to lease rather than owning their own.

Younger generations are eager for new things while considering sustainability. In many product categories, consumers have moved from traditional ownership to newer ways of acquiring products. The fashion industry is no exception. With the continuous development of the second-hand, refurbishment, repair and leasing business models, it not only extends the product life cycle but also meets the consumer demand for novelty and flexibility (the proportion of people's body will change over time). Not only are start-ups, but mature fashion brands are also adopting a new proprietary business model to bring them closer to their customers.

B-type company and American environmental fashion brand Eileen Fisher, with environmental simplicity as the core value of the company, focus on the best products, reduce the product line by 20%, recycle the brand old clothes at the price of US$5 each, and then use them in the second-hand Renew is available for sale, and all are used to support women's efforts to protect and protect the environment. Patagonia, also a globally renowned the outdoor brand for B-type companies also created a business model for internal repair and resale by repurchasing its own products and selling them at discounted prices.

According to P&S Market Research, global sales of jeans in 2016 exceeded $40 billion, and by 2023, the denim market is expected to exceed $87 billion. The market is constantly growing. However, the entire Daning cloth fashion industry has produced problems such as consuming water resources, polluting land and harming the safety and health of the supply chain workers.

In the Netherlands, there is a B-type company, Mud Jeans, which comes from the muddy soil in the puddle, reflecting the eternal care for the future planet; using organic cotton and recycled denim The jeans are produced sustainably, to finally design jeans made from 100% recycled denim. In the manufacturing process, it is also desirable to use a sustainable approach.

According to well-known fashion business media BoF, Bart Sights, vice president of innovation at Levi's, the ancestor of the denim fashion brand, said: "Traditional jeans can be extended in more than 20 steps, using a lot of water. Cotton for a pair of pants should be used up to one. Thousands of chemicals and the process is very labor-intensive. Also, jeans need a lot of water to produce, the factory needs water for various washing and dyeing stages."

According to the waste fashion, it takes about one kilogram of cotton to make a pair of jeans. The average water consumption is 8,500 liters, which means that the water used to grow a pair of jeans is enough to make a bath 40 times.

According to CNBC, Eva Engelen, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility for Soil Jeans said: “Recycle the reusable fabric and remove the zipper and other accessories before starting production. After the machine breaks the material, add pure cotton fiber to improve Intensity. Then, the worker will mix Indigo (blue dye) into it and finally weave it into tannin twill. Of course, all finished products are also inspected by-products and chemicals to ensure that they are completely harmless."

"Now, our jeans are made up of 40% recycled denim. We also joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's CE100 cycle program as part of our commitment to the project; we developed 2020 The goal of the year is to develop a jeans fabric made from 100% recycled denim and reused with 50% recycled rivets, buttons, and zippers."

“The energy efficiency in production is our most critical consideration,” she added. “We do this by prioritizing energy-efficient production processes and supply chain partners. For example, one of our suppliers, the Tejidos Royo plant, has an energy generation system that utilizes steam on the production line generates energy through the steam turbine and is not wasted at all."

"More, the safety and health of workers is also our important corporate mission. In the production process of traditional jeans, in the extremely high-temperature working environment, workers need to work 15 hours a day. In the manufacturing process, workers need to polish jeans. Dyeing, but also to apply chemicals by hand, but there are many harmful ingredients, long-term inhalation will cause lung function damage and some died of pneumoconiosis."

"Also, traditional jeans use chemicals and stone to wash jeans, these are old technologies that cause environmental pollution and endanger workers' health and safety. Innovative lasers for soil jeans, plus ozone treatment technology, traditional jeans stone washing technology and chemistry Revolutionary improvement of our products, our technology is simpler and more efficient, saving time and energy, protecting the environment and our workers, in the long run, saving our resources and external costs to society and the environment. ."

According to the description of the dirt jeans' official website, to obtain a unique appearance, traditional jeans are made of stone grinding and sand washing. The sandpaper is used to scrub the surface of the fabric and make the white bottom of the yarn visible and then use potassium permanganate chemicals to make the unique denim texture more visible: but this traditional brushing not only exposes workers to chemicals for a long time. In the product, it will reduce the damage of the yarn and reduce the life the cycle of the jeans.

Earth jeans use laser technology to burn the surface of jeans yarn and some indigo dyes; also, use ozone technology to convert oxygen (O2) into ozone gas (O3), let the jeans get wet, exposed to ozone and rinse; Before the external environment, ozone will be converted into ordinary oxygen, which will not cause environmental impact.

Traditional chemical bleaching or stone washing uses 6 to 7 washes and rinses and ozone technology require only 2 to 3 washes and rinses. Also, ozone technology can reduce energy consumption because it reduces the temperature that must be heated for wet finishing. Then the jeans are subjected to laser and then ozone is used, which will give a white or obvious wear effect. The above innovative technologies reduce the labor of manual labor and the use of harmful chemicals, and make jeans more sturdy and increase the life of consumers.

Traditional chemicals and stonewash bleaching take 30 to 45 minutes and the dirt jeans' ozone technology removes stains in 3 seconds, bleaching the denim in 15 minutes at the optimum concentration to the needs of today's fashion consumers. Unique aesthetic effect.

What's more, laser technology cuts a lot of manual labor and almost all chemicals (although there are still dozens in use, mainly in the washing process). The technology also has significant cost savings potential. Also, laser technology can truly achieve traditionally washable jeans cannot be achieved, that is, to give consumers the opportunity to accurately order and personalize their unique distressed style on the jeans, perhaps this is in the tannin fashion market The demand continues to grow, and the key to truly winning in personalized, sustainable innovation.

To avoid a waste of back-end consumption, the earthen jeans also developed a rental system for their products. Customers have the following options:

1. Buy a brand new pair of jeans (the price of women's slimming jeans is about $110)

2. Buy a second-hand pair of jeans (this lightly patched pair of jeans costs about $66)

3. Rent a new pair of jeans for $8.39 per month plus a one-time membership fee ($22.38)

At the end of the rental period, when the customer is ready to continue using it, the jeans they rent can be returned to the dirt jeans, or they can be paid for and kept for life. Dilapidated jeans can also be returned to earthy jeans, which will be shredded and reused in second-hand denim. According to the report on the influence of clay jeans, its annual sales growth rate is about 147%, and the estimated total sales in 2018 are 27 million US dollars (about 832 million Taiwan dollars).

As more and more conscious consumers jump away from their previous perceptions of buying, wearing and consuming, the recycled fashion business model of earthy jeans flips the traditional denim fashion industry and leads these concerns. The consumers of development are deeply resonating.

Source (Katja News)

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