Clothing brands that make garments with recycled materials-Environment-life-ELTIEMPO.COM

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There are more and more clothing brands that are committed to making fashion by recycling polluting materials, ranging from tires to plastic bottles. A European example and several Colombian ones.By the year 2030, some 8.5 billion people in the world will need clothes. A fact that the clothing, production and consumption of at least 102 million will represent for the planet tons of clothing, that is, the equivalent of having 500,000 million t-shirts in a huge container.

This is just one of the data that is triggering a growing global concern for the sustainability of the fashion industry, and for the level of awareness and social responsibility that clothing brands around the planet should have. And while that the social control of consumers over clothing brands so that they pollute less with their production processes and guarantee better working conditions for their workers is increasingly palpable, some clothing producers have already fully adopted the banner of sustainability and carry carry out innovations to insert recycled inputs or circular fashion processes that mitigate their socio-environmental impact. Some call this phenomenon the 'era of sustainable fashion'.

After the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh collapsed over 5,000 fashion industry workers in April 2013, killing 1,133 people there, the responsible fashion consumption movement became more audible to point out what is wrong within this industry. Since then, citizen movements have emerged, such as Fashion Revolution, which seek to promote simple actions so that people can impact and generate progressive changes in the fashion industry. Renowned designers such as Stella McCartney have together with the #whomademycloth campaign, promoted by this group to raise awareness among producers and consumers about the origin of the clothing that circulates in the world. “Show your hashtag and ask #whomademyclothes on Fashion Revolution Day,” she posted in April 2015 on her Instagram alongside a photo showing the branding of one of her own brand's coats. In this way, he joined thousands of people around the world who were commemorating the tragedy in Bangladesh to amplify questions to fashion producers and consumers. These and many other questions are giving rise to new ways of approaching this business. In Spain, for example, the Ecoalf brand has concentrated on manufacturing garments, accessories and footwear based on innovation from plastic waste that is recovered from the bottom of the sea, from among the garbage that remains caught in fishermen's nets when they go out to fish. From there, the brand obtains part of the recycled polyester used in its processes and garments that are famous among some personalities in the world.

Carol Blázquez, the company's director of Sustainability and Innovation, explains that her objective has always been focused on creating sustainable models. Since 2015, the company has extracted 500 tons of garbage from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and is now working on the development of new materials in the world of recycling that offer a low environmental impact. "The materials we use the most are recycled polyester from from plastic water bottles, although there is also a small part that is made with fabric remains, those that are discarded from factory cuts or from the clothing manufacturing processes”, emphasizes Blázquez. Soon, the brand will launch sandals in whose production process recycled tire dust has been used for the soles, and the rest is based on the use of recycled coffee grounds. For the production processes of all these recycled materials used, Ecoalf maintains agreements with factories in the different phases of the production process. “We also often work hand-in-hand with them to develop specific materials according to our needs and sometimes when they are really very innovative things. And before entering the industrial process, what we do is work at the laboratory level, in the technological centers”, the director specifies. After the research and development stage come the first tests to verify if the qualities work. "When we verify that this entire process is adequate, we move it to the industrial scale," he adds.

At a time when fashion is the second most polluting industry on the planet –above manufacturing, energy and transport–, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 2019, the world faces the urgent need to take actions that force brands to provide real solutions to mitigate their carbon footprint and its social effects, even if this impacts the final price of their products. For the director of Ecoalf "there are actions that have very high costs, but that are still worth it because today the environmental impact is very high and, in addition, it implies raising awareness in society so that it understands what they are the environmental problems that we are facing and that it is possible to find solutions". The spokeswoman for this Spanish brand points out that as humanity "we have to change the conception between value and price, and understand that there is nothing more expensive than finishing depleting this planet and its natural resources.”

Sustainable clothing and accessory brands or with socio-environmental responsibility objectives are an emerging niche in Colombian fashion. Here are just a few national bets:Paréntesis​A sustainable clothing brand from Antioquia that makes garments from fibers “supra-recycled from post-consumer PET bottles” and cotton “recovered from textile surpluses”. In one year of existence, this brand has transformed 16,366 PET bottles into its garments.Cyclus​This Bogotá bag brand has been working with “100% natural and recycled materials” since 2014. Its flagship product is bags made with tires collected in workshops and roads throughout Colombia.Urban Rock It is part of the trend of local brands that are committed to mixing versatility with functionality, creating collections with few items and limited stock to enhance the versatility of clothing and encourage responsible consumption among his followers.

SUNDAY EDITORIAL** With information from Efe Reports

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