In 2011, the Levi’s brand released 1.5 million pairs of Water‹Less jeans, which will increase to 29 million by year-end for a savings of 360 million liters of water to date. Now it’s taking its sustainability efforts to the proverbial garbage dump, with a new Waste<Less denim collection that will, once again, put the world’s largest maker of jeans worldwide (sales of $4.8 billion in 2011) at the forefront of sustainable brands.

Part of the Levi’s Spring 2013 collection launching in January, the Waste‹Less denim collection will comprise about 400,000 men’s and women’s jeans and jean jackets made of eight crushed brown and green plastic bottles per pair and composed of at least 20% recycled plastic, in a process that reused about 3.5 million bottles and saved enough water to fill 144 Olympic-size swimming pools.

“This collection proves that you don’t have to sacrifice quality, comfort or style to give an end a new beginning,” stated James Curleigh, global president of the Levi’s brand. “We don’t just want to reduce our impact on the environment, we want to leave it better than we found it.”

While others in apparel, notably Patagonia, Nike and Gap, are also foraging for more sustainability, Levi’s conducted its first life-cycle assessment in 2007 and by 2010 began encouraging consumers to wash their jeans in cold water, less frequently, and to dry them on a line. Earlier this month, Levi’s announced a goal of reducing greenhouse gases 25% by 2020, and GHG emissions by 5% for each product it manufactures, using 20% renewable energy across the company by 2020.

The brand’s water-less thinking and research led to plastic and eventually to the Waste<Less line. “Is turning eight bottles of plastic into a pair of jeans worth it? I think so,” said Curleigh, who also spoke about the new line to NPR.

The Waste<Less production cycle:

• PET plastic, or polyethylene terephthalate materials – including brown beer bottles, green soda bottles, clear water bottles and black food trays – are collected through municipal recycling programs across the United States.

• The bottles and food trays are sorted by color, crushed into flakes, and made into a polyester fiber.

• Next, the polyester fiber is blended with cotton fiber, which is finally woven with traditional cotton yarn by Cone Denim to create the denim used in the Levi’s® Waste<Less™ jeans and trucker jackets. The color of the bottles used adds a beautiful undertone to the denim fabric creating a unique finish in the final product.

via Brand Channel