{"id":570,"date":"2021-02-19T16:25:47","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T21:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.pirg-test.com\/georgia\/articles\/jessica-schreiber-its-just-too-easy-and-convenient-throw-things-away\/"},"modified":"2022-08-06T07:48:47","modified_gmt":"2022-08-06T11:48:47","slug":"jessica-schreiber-its-just-too-easy-and-convenient-to-throw-things-away","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/dev.pirg-test.com\/georgia\/articles\/jessica-schreiber-its-just-too-easy-and-convenient-to-throw-things-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Schreiber: \u2018It\u2019s just too easy and convenient to throw things away\u2019"},"featured_media":13346,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":false,"_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":""},"campaign_tax":[],"display_option":[],"issue_tax":[],"person_tax":[],"region_tax":[],"state":[5,7,8,9,12,13,16,18,23,24,25,28,29,2,32,33,34,36,38,40,41,42,46,50,52],"topic_tax":[],"class_list":["post-570","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"details":{"helper_taxonomies":{"topics":[215],"collection":false,"press_type":false,"person_type":false,"resource_type":false,"event_type":false,"campaigns":false,"department":false,"level":false,"states":[2,5,7,8,9,12,13,16,18,23,24,25,28,29,32,33,34,36,38,40,41,42,46,50,52],"act_option":false,"display_option":false,"primary":{"topic":215}},"featured_image":13346,"caption_override":"","excerpt":"We need to make it easier for clothing companies to reuse and recycle. Policy, data collection and nonprofits can help.","updated_on":null,"sidebar_action":null,"hide_hero_image":false,"sidebar_action_query_string":""},"helper_people_group":{"title":"Authors","entities":[{"type":"dynamic","dynamic_person":{"site":1,"people":"13257"},"information":{"name":"","image":null,"role":"","biography":"","contact":{"twitter":"","facebook":"","email":"","phone":""}}}]},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_wysiwyg":{"content":"

Clothes generate a lot of waste. From the extra fabric discarded during the design process to the unsold overstock to the disposable clothes consumers wear only a few times, it nearly all ends up in the same place sooner rather than later: a landfill or incinerator. Unwanted clothing, fabric and other textiles now make up the fastest growing wastestream<\/a> in the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During a recent webinar hosted by U.S. PIRG Education Fund as part of its Waste is Out of Fashion<\/a> campaign, I had the opportunity to sit down with three expert panelists: journalist and Senior Contributor at Forbes Brooke Roberts-Islam; Founder and CEO of FABSCRAP Jessica Schreiber; and author and journalist Elizabeth L. Cline.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is the second of a four part series looking at some of the highlights and lessons learned from Jessica Schreiber. You can view the recording<\/a> to listen to the whole conversation and hear from the other panelists.<\/p>\n

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> On your website, it says: \u201cThe fashion industry has a waste problem\u2026FABSCRAP<\/a> is the solution.\u201d Why did you start FABSCRAP, and how is your nonprofit helping to reduce textile waste?<\/em><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> I really became aware of commercial textile waste when I was working at sanitation overseeing the city\u2019s clothing recycling program. I actually had several brands reach out and ask if they could use the city\u2019s program for their fabric and textile waste from the design process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These weren\u2019t finished garments or used clothing. We receive fabric scraps from the actual production process. I would say 75 percent of what we get are fabric swatches that designers get from fabric mills to choose what they\u2019ll be working with that season. We get lots of sample yardage (1-2 yard cuts of fabric). We get deadstock on rolls, full leather skins, cones of yarn, zippers, buttons and embellishments. Closer to the end of the process we do get mock-up and mutilated garments, which are not quite finished samples, or the very first sample finished will be mutilated by a razor blade down the back because they are not planning to sell it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t really fit into the existing nonprofit infrastructure. If you go to Salvation Army or Goodwill, you are looking for finished used garments, not so much the raw material. Hearing from these brands that this was a waste stream generated at high volumes and pretty often, I thought, \u201cwhy isn\u2019t there a nonprofit infrastructure for the raw materials, not just for the finished goods?\u201d We can take all the industry waste and make it more available to fashion students, home sewers, crafters, artists and interior designers.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where FABSCRAP came in. There\u2019s about 12 percent of all material wasted<\/a> just in the design process. Stepping in there to help alleviate some of that is where we\u2019re working.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> In your experience, what motivates corporations to use your services. When a company first contacts you, why do they say why they want to recycle with FABSCRAP?<\/em><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> I think there\u2019s a couple things. I will note that almost never are we meeting with companies at the C-suite level. Most of what is happening within companies is happening with the women\u2019s design team or the fabric team, or sometimes the sustainability team. We have even had interns who have introduced us to their bosses, who sign up for service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is very much something that people within the company care a lot about. They want to work somewhere that is recycling in the same way they are recycling at home. Some of it is a little bit of guilt. I think these fabric buyers know how much that swatch or yard cost. Some of it is beautiful unique fabric, and so to throw it out kind of hurts. A lot of them were storing it under their desks or in closets. There is only so much that can go to fashion schools or to arts organizations. They can\u2019t process it at such high volumes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That is usually how brands reach out to us\u2013feeling guilty about throwing things away. In some cases, it\u2019s, \u201cwe want the data on the waste that we are throwing out.\u201d Sometimes, but rarely, it\u2019s \u201cwe want to comply with New York City law about disposing of textile waste.\u201d But most of the time, it\u2019s someone from a fabric or design team who is just looking for something better to do with the waste.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> There are almost no policies addressing this giant wastestream in the country. One exception is the New York City law you just mentioned, within the sanitation code, requiring companies with more than 10 percent of their waste streams as textiles to recycle. Can you speak a little bit about the role that the current textile policy in NYC plays, and where there is room for improvement?<\/em><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> The law is very specific and applies to businesses for which 10 percent or more of their waste is textiles. They are supposed to be recycling that textile waste. The difficult piece there is that prior to FABSCRAP there weren\u2019t a lot of options for where to send this. There is only so much that can be donated or resold, so compliance was hard before FABSCRAP.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also not really enforced. It\u2019s a difficult law to enforce in NYC because buildings have the contract with their waste carrier, not individual companies on the floors. So on a highrise building, there are a couple fashion brands within those 40 floors. It gets hard to enforce at the street level. Even though it\u2019s a sanitation code, it\u2019s actually handled by the Business Integrity commission, and when I spoke with them they said they can\u2019t remember ever writing a citation for this law. There\u2019s just not a lot of awareness because it\u2019s just not super enforceable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> What kind of changes are needed for more companies to take action to reuse or recycle their\u00a0fabrics and deadstock?<\/em><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> That\u2019s a big question. I do think there\u2019s a policy component because right now it\u2019s super cheap and super easy to throw it away. Making that less of an option, either through additional fees, enforcement, taxes or a tax benefit for choosing recycling or alternative. Right now, it\u2019s just too easy and convenient to throw things away.<\/p>\n

Another component and the reason FABSCRAP is so intent on measuring everything that comes in and is sorted and giving that data back to brands is because I don\u2019t think most brands really have a full picture of that waste stream. It\u2019s really really hard to characterize, and there\u2019s not a lot of transparency. I don\u2019t think individual brands have a concept of what percentage of their waste happens during the design process and how much of that is paper, fabric or any number of things. Part of it is just the need for an awareness of what waste is being created.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then the third piece, and maybe the most difficult, is an understanding of what end-of-life options do exist. Fiber-to-fiber recycling is an important component of this but it needs to get to scale. For brands to understand all of the end of the life options is a lot of work. That is where there is great partnership ability with third parties and being able to use the tech knowledge that exists in other sectors to help them make the best possible decision.<\/p>\n

Jessica Schreiber <\/strong>is the Founder and CEO of FABSCRAP, which provides convenient pickup and recycling of fabric scraps from businesses in New York City and creates opportunities for reuse. Prior to launching FABSCRAP, she was responsible for New York City\u2019s textile recycling and e-waste recycling contracts and programs as a Senior Manager in the Bureau of Recycling and Sustainability at the Department of Sanitation. She has a Master\u2019s degree in Climate and Society from the Earth Institute at Columbia University and has been featured in Forbes, Waste360, and Apparel Magazine\u2019s Top Elite Under 30.<\/em><\/p><\/body><\/html>","":null}}]},"yoast_head":"\nJessica Schreiber: \u2018It\u2019s just too easy and convenient to throw things away\u2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We need to make it easier for clothing companies to reuse and recycle. 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