Heather Kaye of Finch Designs talks at Green Drinks China Monthly Forum in May about recycled fibers.

1. Scrap, melt or spin?
A look at recycled fibers

2. What are we wearing?
65%
35% Manufactured
& Synthetic
Natural Fiber

3. How much are we consuming?!
Americans alone consume nearly 20 billion garments a year.
That’s more than one piece of clothing purchased per week!
• UNIQLO makes 600,000 items of clothing a year.
• Zara processes 1 million garments per day.
• World fiber production is now 82 million tons, which
requires 145 million tons of coal and somewhere between 1.5
trillion and 2 trillion gallons of water to produce.
• In the U.S., almost 13 million tons of textile waste are
generated annually. Of that, just 15% is recovered for reuse
or recycling.
• Source: http://www.overdressedthebook.com/fashion-fast-facts/

4. FINCH: 2010

5. The Influence of Designers
Raw
Materials
Knitting &
Weaving
Fabric
Dyeing &
Printing
Garment
Production
Customer/
Disposal?
Transport
& Distro
Landfill

6. Sourcing: Trust issues
• Apparel has a LONG supply chain...raw fiber to
spinning to weaving/knitting to dyeing to finishing to
garment making
• Lack of transparency from suppliers and agents
• Language barrier
• Many different certifications and standards...GOTS,
Intertek, Oeko-tex, KRAV, IVN, Ecolabel, JOCA

7. What is being certified?
• Raw fiber?
• Fabric?
• The finished garment?

8. GOTS
Global Organic Textile Standards (GOTS)
The GOTS standards cover production,
processing, manufacturing, packaging,
labeling, export, import and distribution
of all natural fibers.

9. Sustainable fabric options
• Organic Cotton
• Hemp, bamboo, soy
• Tencel and Modal
• Silk, wool, yak
• Recycled cotton
• Recycled PET (Poly Ethylene Terephthalate)

10. Source: http://rpetclothing.com/What-Is-RPET.html

11. The FINCH Rain Cape

12. Why recycle plastic?
It takes 450-700 years for most types of plastic bottles to decompose
•Approximately 86% of plastic bottles aren’t recycled in USA
•Approximately 1500 bottles end up in land fills and the ocean…every
second
•60 million plastic water bottles are used each day in the US alone, 30
Million in Europe, more than 100 million world wide every day
•It takes 3-5 litres of water to make 1 plastic bottle
•Plastic bottles are a petroleum product and use 151 billion litres of oil to
produce each year. That’s enough to run 500,000 cars per year.
• Source: http://www.safebottles.co.nz/News/Plastics+and+the+Environment.html

13. But wait...
• Where do the recycled plastic bottles come
from?
• How do we know these are actually post-
consumer use bottles?
• How many bottles does it take to make one
cape?

14. Sourcing eco-friendly dyes
• The dyes allowed under GOTS are limited to natural
dyes and some synthetic dyes that meet GOTS specific
requirements
• Look for “low-impact dyes” and “fiber-reactive dyes”
• Avoid dyes with heavy metals, formaldehyde,
pesticides, and azo dyes

15. ...and printing?
• Screen printing with low-impact dyes
• Digital or inkjet textile printing
• VOCs, solvents, energy and water inputs

16. Keep in mind...
• The real costs of FAST FASHION are borne by
the garment factory workers, the environment
and our limited resources
• Invest in timeless, high-quality garments that
have been made under fair labor conditions
• CONSUME LESS, RE-USE MORE!