Ready to Rewear

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Aluminum, glass, paper, plastic, and . . . T-shirts? Now you have good reason to clean out your closet, as more and more clothing companies are finding ways to recycle or reuse that pair of pants you never wear (or wore so much they fell apart).

It's not an entirely revolutionary idea: Nike has been recycling footwear since 1993, when it launched the Reuse-A-Shoe program. The company encourages customers to mail old sneakers to a Nike recycling center, where they're ground into materials that cushion playground surfaces and create tennis courts.

And in late 2005, Patagonia, known for its ecoforward policies, began recycling Capilene undergarments through its Common Threads program. 'Our goal is to take responsibility for our products, from their inception to their end,' says Patagonia spokeswoman Jen Rapp. When customers drop off their old garments, the fabrics are shipped to a recycling plant in Japan, where they're broken down and spun into fresh fibers. Patagonia weaves those fibers into new long underwear and T-shirts. Even accounting for the environmental impact of shipping to the recycling plant, Patagonia reports a 76 percent decrease in energy use and a 71 percent decrease in carbon dioxide emissions compared to using virgin materials.

The impulse to reduce and reuse is spreading to other companies. Last year, Banana Republic introduced its Drop Your Pants campaign, a partnership with charity organization Goodwill: For a limited time, if you donated a pair of used pants to Goodwill through a Banana Republic store, you'd get a discount on new merchandise. And Martin + Osa, a grown-up brand developed by campus favorite American Eagle Outfitters, has trademarked the request 'Please Dispose of Your Old Clothes Properly.' To help you do just that, they're running a denim donation program: Take any old pair of jeans to Martin + Osa, and the store will donate them to participating charities.

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