Soex, one of the few large scale textile recycling companies in the world, recently opened a plant in Los Angeles as part of its U.S. pilot program. City estimates account fabric remnants and used clothing to take up a full 10% of area landfills. Soex’s process, which is done without chemicals or water, includes putting clothing through machinery which turns it into products such as automobile insulation or underlay for carpets. This sounds like an incredible process to bring to the U.S., where clothing is so disposable. I’m looking straight at my own involvement in the root of this problem as I prepare to move and see that I own an embarrassingly large amount of clothes. Some will go to my favorite secondhand store in all of NYC, Beacon’s Closet, and others will be donated. I found this story a good reminder however that everything that gets donated doesn’t get used. Hopefully with innovative processes of companies like Soex, and growing awareness that quality, not quantity is best with clothing, we’ll start making a reduction in this area of the waste stream.

For the full article on Soex (thanks to a friend who works in fashion that sent it, who else reads Apparelnews.net?!) click here.