Looptworks and Upcycling: By the Numbers

60,000 pounds
Average amount of excess fabric, trims, buttons, zippers, thread, and the like produced at a midsize garment factory each week.

$18,000
What a rag sorter got for a pair of collectible Levi’s at an auction in Paris.

11.9 million tons
The weight of textiles put into municipal solid-waste streams in 2007. Of that, just 16% was diverted to textile recycling facilities.

6.3%
The portion of municipal solid waste derived from textiles in 2008, up from 2% in 1960.

99%
Amount of upstream waste — natural resources and all materials used in production, transport, and packaging — six months after the sale of a given product in North America.

Zero waste
Looptworks’s goal.

Sources: Looptworks; Sustainable Fashion: Why Now, by Janet Hethorn; Natural Capitalism, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins; Environmental Protection AgencyFCS