Disrupt the apparel, coz nothing else matters
Welcome to "nouveau monde", a four-handed newsletter to better understand how to make the world better through the lens of retail. This is #63.
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Le menu du jour at nouveau monde is about textile and package.
Today's newsletter is 935 words, a 5-minutes read.
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Hey Billie, how is it?!
by Phil
It’s time to say stop to the waste (and shame on how people are still exploited in some places in the world) at so many levels happening to the apparel industry.
Developing the recycling of textiles is an important step in promoting sustainability, conserving resources, and reducing waste. It can have significant environmental, economic, and social benefits, and is an important step towards a more sustainable future.
There are several reasons why it is important to streamline the recycling of textiles:
Environmental Benefits: Textile waste that ends up in landfills can have a significant environmental impact. Synthetic fibers can take hundreds of years to decompose, while natural fibers can release harmful greenhouse gases as they decompose. By recycling textiles, we can reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills and reduce the environmental impact of textile production.
Conservation of Resources: Textile recycling can help conserve natural resources such as water, energy, and raw materials. For example, recycling cotton saves water and energy compared to producing new cotton, and recycling polyester saves oil and energy compared to producing new polyester.
Economic Benefits: Recycling textiles can create jobs and support local economies. Textile recycling facilities require workers to sort, process, and recycle textiles, and can provide a source of revenue for communities through the sale of recycled materials.
Social Responsibility: Textile waste is a significant problem globally, and reducing waste through recycling is an important social responsibility. By recycling textiles, we can reduce the negative impact of textile production on communities and the environment, and promote sustainable practices that benefit everyone.
I recently met with the “Billie System” which is a new kind of technology that is streamlining the recycling of textiles. It is environmentally-friendly, and cost-effective, making it the perfect solution for many brands.
The Billie System innovative waterless system is developed by Novetex Textiles Limited, established in 1976 and part of the Novel Group. The Hong Kong-based company has extensive operations in multiple cities across China and Asia, and clients include a number of global high-profile brands.
Their new patented system that uses no water and is almost entirely automated, that helps companies revive excess inventory, unused raw materials, and/or textile waste produces no chemical waste.
How is that?
Garments are purified using an ozone sanitization system. The ozone is produced onsite, and then disposed into the air as oxygen.
Hardware is removed from recycled clothing by hand and fabrics are trimmed.
Trimmed fabrics are then sent to a camera system to be sorted into nine color ranges.
Color-sorted swatches are transferred by an Automatic Guide Vehicle to the mechanical recycling process, which breaks the fabrics down into fibres.
Fibres go through two stages of UV light sanitization.
The 100 percent recycled fibres are processed into slivers, which can then be used to make yarn.
Tadaa!
You want to visit their Metaspace for more info? Go here!
Nothing Else Matters
by Anthony
Have you read Phil’s last article about shopping bags in retail and efforts retailers take to reduce them ? I have, and found it interesting (of course!) but it also hit a fact that my friend Gautier (hi!) illustrated with this picture:
For non-French speaking people, here’s a translation:
this packaging pollutes
but not as much as our clothes.
Even if it is made of kraft from sustainably managed forests and manufactured in Europe, this packaging pollutes: its manufacture emitted approximately 20g of CO2 equivalent.
Except that's not much next to the carbon footprint of a garment. That of a cotton t-shirt, for example, is 7 kg of CO equivalent* - that is to say 350 times more.
So make no mistake about it: the important thing is not to have "eco-responsible" packaging, it's to buy only the clothes you really need.
It’s signed by LOOM and went with a shirt my friend bought recently.
LOOM is a French-based fashion brand that aims to sell the less polluting garments made in the best sustainability conditions and their goal is to reinvent the fashion industry and make cease the fast fashion.
Their baseline : Moins mais Mieux (Less but Better) and as they say in the packaging, you should only buy stuff when you really need it, not when you want it.
This really is an interesting point regarding Sustainability : do you have to focus on what matters? On what’s seen by customers? Both?
With their notice on the packaging Loom reminds us that sustainability is a real hard problem and that we should focus on what matters : yes, packaging maters but the making of the shirt matters 10 times more.
At home, yes, you can pay attention to recycle or reuse your bottles, but if you take a plane twice a year, your efforts are useless.
It’s a matter of consistency, and it’s really hard regarding sustainability because most of don’t know what really is important and what’s not.
Thank you LOOM for this advice and for making us aware consumers.
By the way, if you wear jeans (and you speak French), you’ll be interested by this article deep diving into the mystery about jeans tearing at the crotch!
Bonus track by Anthony
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