Green soda bottles, brown beer bottles, water bottles and black food trays are the main ingredients being used to create Levi’s new Waste>Less jeans. The jeans include a minimum of 20% post-consumer recycled material. This translates to about 355 to 590 millilitre bottles used per pair. The Waste

In order to turn the bottles into denim the recycled content is collected by municipal recycling programs and sorted by colour. The materials are then crushed into miniature pieces and turned into a polyester fibre. The polyester fibre is combined with cotton fibre and woven together with traditional cotton yarn. This process creates a denim material with a distinctively different undertone, adding to the original appearance of the Waste

When asked about the new environmentally friendly jeans, James Curleigh, global president of the Levi’s brand, told PSFK:

“From the beginning, we have designed our products with purpose and intent. By adding value to waste, we hope to change the way people think about recycling, ultimately incentivizing them to do more of it. This collection proves that you don’t have to sacrifice quality, comfort or style to give an end a new beginning.”

[Via PSFK]

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Claudia McNeilly is an editorial intern at the Toronto Standard. You can follow her on twitter at@claudiamcneilly

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