Second-quality jeans are those that don’t quite meet quality standards – the wash may be too dark; the stitching may not be quite right, or the cut may be irregular. Usually they are sold for discount prices or just thrown away.
They are also called as export leftovers. In industrial practices, such jeans become an environmental burden as the quality control departments won’t let them clear for shipment. In other words, these are now the unwanted or rejected garments.
According to the United Nations, approximately 10,000 liters of water are required to make one single pair of jeans from the production of the cotton to the delivery of the final product to the store. Water scarcity has long been a challenge in Tunisia but climate change, combined with rapid urbanization, has made the problem even more acute. With demands from industry and agriculture putting immense pressure on Tunisia’s water resources, Nudie Jeans and UNIDO are hoping their project will show a way to do more with less.
Nudie Jeans, a global leader in sustainable fashion, is looking at ways to make use of second-quality jeans to maintain the highest quality of its products, while reducing the environmental impact of the production process. To develop greener production processes in Tunisia, Nudie Jeans has been working with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) as part of the European Union-funded SwitchMed project.
Roberta De Palma, Chief Technical Advisor at UNIDO said,
“The current production system for fashion goods uses high volumes of virgin fibers, which creates a significant pressure on valuable resources, such as water. Exploring ways for recycling post-industrial textile waste could reduce this dependency and support the development of a recycling infrastructure in the production countries.
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Brinkberg, the Swedish company’s environmental manager, said,“Eight thousand pairs of second-choice jeans are being used, together with virgin denim fabric, to create 20,000 meters of new fabric. From this new fabric, 15,000 pairs of new jeans will be created.
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