Transcript:
Each week, at a warehouse in Brooklyn, volunteers sort through thousands of pounds of fabric from colorful cotton scraps to unused bolts of linen and silk.
Tagle: “What a lot of people don’t realize is that along the course of the production of garment making, there is a lot of waste that happens along the way.”
Camille Tagle is cofounder of FABSCRAP. The nonprofit partners with clothing brands to reuse and recycle textile waste – including fabric samples, prototype designs, and scraps left over after cutting and sewing.
Some of the material is sold online or in person at the organization’s store.
Tagle: “Maybe, you know, somebody wants to make a top or a dress out of one of our fabrics. People also use it for arts and crafts.”
Other material gets shredded into a product that’s used for insulation, carpet padding, and more.
Tagle says reusing and recycling textile waste helps keep material out of landfills, where it emits climate-warming methane as it decomposes.
And it reduces the amount of new material that needs to be produced in the first place – which cuts down on carbon pollution at all stages of the supply chain.
So FABSCRAP is helping reduce the climate impact of fashion, one scrap at a time.
Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media
