Levi Strauss has come up with a pretty cool way to reuse some of the plastic from the 9.1 billion gallons of bottled water Americans consumed last year.
The iconic jeans company has created a pair of Waste<Less jeans (fist bump for the clever name), made by grinding post-consumer PET from water bottles, brown beer bottles, soda bottles, and black food trays into flakes and turning it into a polyester fiber that is blended with cotton fiber. Each pair will be made of at least 20% post-consumer materials, equal to about eight 12- to 20-ounce water bottles.
“From the beginning, we have designed our products with purpose and intent,†said James Curleigh, Levi’s global president. “By adding value to waste, we hope to change the way people think about recycling, ultimately incentivizing them to do more of it.†He notes that the collection proves consumers “don’t have to sacrifice quality, comfort or style to give an end a new beginning.â€
The Waste<Less collection will hit stores in Spring 2013 and will be available in all classic Levi’s jeans cuts. The average retail price will be between $50 and $200, which is surprisingly affordable for a product developed from recycled materials.
Would you wear a pair of these? I’m curious to know if they feel the same as regular jeans and what the ground-up plastic will do for the look and color.
Image: Levi Strauss
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