HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Recycling old Patagonia garments is easy. Simply wash them first and drop them off at Bill & Paul's– ideally, while you're running other errands, to reduce environmental impact.
Please note: Recycling your old clothes is voluntary. If you choose to recycle, you'll gain the satisfaction of knowing that your old polyester garments will not end up in a landfill or an incinerator, and that future Patagonia products will require significantly less virgin polyester (less oil) than products from seasons past.
WHAT IS COMMON THREADS?
Here at Bill & Paul's keeping the outdoors clean and beautiful is something we strive for. That's why we are proud to offer the Patagonia Common Thread's recycling bins in our store. In 2005 Patagonia launched the Common Threads Garment Recycling Program, through which customers could return their worn out Capilene® Performance Baselayers to be recycled. The list of recyclable garments includes: Worn out Patagonia® fleece, Polartec® fleece clothing (from any maker), Patagonia cotton T-shirts, and now some additional polyester and nylon 6 products that come with a Common Threads tag.
"Through Common Threads we can transform your unusable garments into new clothing, which gets us closer to a long-standing company goal of taking full responsibility for every product we make." ~PATAGONIA
In 1993, Patagonia adopted fleece into product lines made from post consumer recycled plastic soda bottles. Patagonia was the first outdoor clothing manufacturer to do so. PCR® clothing was a positive step towards a more sustainable system – one that uses fewer resources, discards less and better protects people’s health. Over the course of 13 years, Patagonia has saved some 86 million soda bottles from the trash heap. That’s enough oil to fill the 40-gallon gas tank of the diminutive Chevy Suburban 20,000 times.
Today, Patagonia is able to utilize more sources for recycled polyester and offer it on more garments such as Capilene baselayers, shell jackets and board shorts, as well as fleece. They now recycle used soda bottles, unusable second quality fabrics and worn out garments into polyester fibers to produce many of our clothes. They have also started the world's first garment recycling program – bring us your old, worn-out Capilene baselayer, Patagonia fleece or Polartec® fleece (from any maker) and Patagonia will make a new polyester garment from it using an innovative process developed by their friends at TEJIN.
Benefits of recycled polyester:
- Lessens dependence on oil
- Curbs discards, thereby prolonging landfill life and reducing toxic emissions from incinerators
- Helps to promote a new recycling stream for polyester clothing that is no longer wearable
- Creates less air, water and soil contamination
