8 Bottles will Become One Jeans By Levi's

Rubbish jeans: how Levi's is turning plastic into fashion

In an attempt to tackle waste, Levi's has created a new denim 
range which uses eight plastic bottles for each pair of jeansundressing in a launderette in a 1985 TV ad for 501 jeans.

But the world has changed since the profligate 80s, and Levi's is changing with it. Waste

As the company points out, plastic waste is a huge problem; global bottled water consumption is more than 29 litres per person per year, and recycling rates are low — 29% in the US and 51% in Europe. "Approximately 1 million bottles are used every 20 minutes in the US, so our thinking behind Waste

Levi's answer was to create two fashion lines – jeans and trucker jackets – that incorporate at least 20% post-consumer plastic recycled content. That equates to about eight 12-20oz bottles per pair. "If we can have consumers drink out of a plastic bottle and realise that it can become something else in the future, maybe they will be more inclined to recycle it," explains Kirby.

It sounds simple, but a lot of research and development – from the design to new fibre-spinning techniques to sourcing waste plastic – has gone into the Waste

The company has reused more than 3.6m bottles and food trays for the 300,000 Waste

Waste

In 2007, Levi's commissioned research into the environmental impacts of two of its products, including a pair of 501 jeans: climate, energy, water, materials, land use and bio-diversity were scrutinised. The findings showed that the greatest reduction in environmental impact could be made at the start and end of a product's lifecycle. So Levi's signed up to the Better Cotton Initiative, which focuses on reducing water and chemical use in cotton cultivation, and launched a campaign to persuade its customers and staff to wash their clothes less often.

It also designed the Watermore than 360m litres of water

. Kirby says the company didn't set itself specific targets for reducing waste through its Waste

"Our targets internally were to better ourselves year on year by using more recycled materials, alternative fibres, less water; it's an internal [company] desire to use less. Success for us looks like other brands adopting Water

This week a new, limited edition 501 jean has hit the shops which combines WasteEkocycle

, the movement set up by musician and producer will.i.am and Coca Cola to "make more sustainable living cool".

But some will argue that without targets, the desire to keep striving to cut resource use, improve efficiency and promote sustainability could wane as easily as it has waxed in recent years; others argue that this is another example of greenwash from a large corporate that has seen a gap in the market and has mobilised its vast resources to jump on the sustainability bandwagon.

Kirby points to the company's opening last week of a new innovation lab two blocks down from its HQ in San Francisco "that will allow us to rapidly prototype products a lot closer to home and really enable us to innovate from a sustainability standpoint" as evidence of its commitment to reducing resource use.

As for the greenwash accusation: "The fashion industry is highly wasteful and it's only a matter of time before people are demanding this type of product and that you re-use resources. To the sceptics, I say: 'Fine. Not really a major problem, but you've got to begin somewhere'."

Back in 1985, saying your product was "made of garbage" would have been tantamount to commercial suicide. These days, "Levi's jeans? What a load of rubbish!" is probably the biggest compliment you can pay the brand.