Tucked away in the bowels of the Brooklyn Army Terminal is a 4,000-square-foot warehouse filled from wall to wall and floor to ceiling with garbage bags. They contain castoffs from New York’s fashion studios: mock-up pockets ripped from sample jeans, swatches in next season’s paisley print.
There is denim here in every wash, spandex in every hue. Dig through one bag and it is possible to find a little rug of carmine-colored fur and yards of gray pinstripe wool suiting. In another, embroidered patches from GapKids and spools of ribbon in velvet and lace.
Nearly 6,000 pounds of textile scraps arrive each week to be inspected, sorted and recycled by five staffers and many more volunteers at FabScrap, the nonprofit behind this operation. Since 2016, it has helped New York’s fashion studios recycle their design-room discards — the mutilated garments, dead-stock rolls and swatches that designers use to pick materials and assess prototypes.
So far, the organization has collected close to half a million pounds of fabric from the design studios of large retailers like Express, J. Crew and Marc Jacobs and independent clothiers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Their discards have been shredded and recycled into stuffing and insulation or resold to fashion students, educators and artists.
“So much waste gets created in the design process,” said Jessica Schreiber, the executive director of FabScrap. “But it’s the tip of the iceberg.”
As climate change has accelerated, corporations of all kinds have become increasingly preoccupied with their sustainability cred. Four-fifths of consumers feel strongly that companies should implement programs to improve the environment, according to a recent Nielsen study.
Clothing companies in particular have faced pressure to change, from politicians, protesters at fashion shows and shoppers of all ages who want to reduce their carbon footprints. The fashion industry is often erroneously cited as the second-most polluting business in the world, but overproduction, chemical use, carbon emissions and waste are certainly issues it contends with.
Ms. Schreiber understood early the angst that waste was causing designers. In 2014, she was overseeing the Department of Sanitation’s refashionNYC program, which collects old clothing and textiles at farmers’ markets and in participating apartment buildings.
She received a string of similar calls from brands including J. Crew, Eileen Fisher, Express, Mara Hoffman and Marc Jacobs. The companies were sitting on piles of seasonal prints and swatches that couldn’t be donated but shouldn’t be thrown out.
“It really hit a nerve with people,” Ms. Schreiber said. Half of the designers had resorted to hoarding scraps under their desks as they tried — and failed — to find places to give them away. “There was a lot of guilt,” she said, and no clear path.
Spinning a Sustainable Yarn
For a designer, cutting down on waste isn’t as simple as recycling a few bags of fabric every week. It requires overhauling the brand’s business model: forgoing seasonal collections; eschewing — or being rejected by — traditional retailers that accept only large orders and standard packaging; selling directly to consumers; and getting design teams to think about the sustainability and supply chain of each material and garment.
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回收旧布可以解决时尚的浪费问题吗？(TheNewYorkTimes)
一个占地 4,000 平方英尺的仓库藏在布鲁克林陆军码头的巷子里，从这边墙壁到那边墙壁，从地板到天花
板满是垃圾袋。它们包含来自纽约时装工作室的废品：从样品牛仔裤上裁下来的口袋，还有每季佩斯利印
花试色。
每次洗涤中都有牛仔布，各种颜色各种材质。打开一个袋子，可以找到一点地毯色的胭脂红色皮草和几件
灰色细条纹羊毛西服。另一个袋子里有GapKids 的刺绣补丁，以及天鹅绒和花边的缎带卷。
每周有近 6,000 磅的纺织品废料运抵 FabScrap，这是该组织背后的非营利组织，由五名员工和很多志愿
者进行检查、分类和回收。自 2016 年以来，它已帮助纽约的时装工作室回收了设计室中的废品-残缺的服
装、用过的纸卷和色板，设计师用来挑选材料和评估原型的试验品。
到目前为止，该组织已经从 Express，J。Crew和Marc Jacobs 等大型零售商的设计工作室以及纽约、新
泽西和康涅狄格州的独立服装商的设计工作室中收集了将近 50 万磅的面料。他们的废弃物已被切碎、回
收再用作填充物和隔热材料，或转售给时尚学生、教育者和艺术家。
FabScrap 执行董事 Jessica Schreiber 说：“在设计过程中产生了很多浪费。”“但这只是冰山一角。”
随着气候变化的加速，各种公司越来越关注其可持续发展的信誉。根据尼尔森（Nielsen）最近的一项研究，
五分之四的消费者强烈认为公司应该实施改善环境的计划。
尤其是服装公司面临着变革的压力，这些挑战来自政客、时装秀的抗议者以及各个年龄段想要减少碳足迹
的购物者。人们经常错误地将时装业列为世界第二污染大企业，但生产过剩，化学药品使用，碳排放和废
物无疑是它所要解决的问题。
Schreiber 女士很早就意识到浪费是造成设计师的焦虑。 2014年，她负责卫生部的 refashionNYC计划，
该计划在农场市集和参与的公寓大楼中收集旧衣服和纺织品。
她收到了来自 J.Crew，Eileen Fisher，Express，Mara Hoffman 和Marc Jacobs 等品牌的类似呼吁。这
些公司都有一堆无法捐赠但不应丢弃的季节性印刷品和色板。
Schreiber 女士说：“这确实让人们感到不安。”一半的设计师在试图（但没有成功）找到桌子下面囤积
的积碎屑的归属。她说：“有很多内疚感。”
纺出可持续的纱线
对于设计师而言，减少浪费并不像每周回收几袋织物那么简单。这需要彻底改变品牌的商业模式：放弃季
节性收藏；避开（或被拒绝）仅接受大订单和标准包装的传统零售商；直接向消费
者销售；让设计团
队考虑每种材料和服装的可持续性和供应链。
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