Blue Jeans Gone Green

It might be time to accept it: you are never going to fit into your old “skinny jeans” from freshman year of college. Toss those acai berries, love yourself as you are and get rid of those menacing pants!

We go through dozens of denims in a lifetime-whether we grow out of them or they become simply too worn to pass off as anything but part of a Halloween costume. What should you do with your old blues? Are they recyclable? You bet.

For The Right-Brainers

The list of possible crafts and reuse options is almost endless. Dust off the ol’ needle and thread and try converting your old jeans into one of these cool crafts (designs can be found online):

• Handbag
• MP3 protector
• Pair of sandals
• Hot pad
• Quilt or rug
• Picture frame
• Gift wrap
• Bulletin board
• Rope bone for Fido

A New Life: Blue Jeans As Insulation

Innovative companies are finding additional uses for old jeans. Bonded Logic Inc., based out of Chandler, Ariz., uses recycled denim to manufacture insulation. Their Ultratouch Natural Cotton Fiber insulation contains 85 percent post-industrial recycled natural fibers and requires minimal energy to produce. Ultratouch contains no chemical irritants and does not cause irritation or itchiness to the installer like many other insulations. The product also has better sound-deadening properties than the alternative fiberglass insulation, said Sean Desmond, director of sales and marketing.

The company gets its denim from various sources:

• Blue jeans manufacturers, who collect the scraps and clippings leftover during manufacturing process. Ten years ago, most of this waste was simply landfilled. Now Bonded Logic receives and processes about 300 tons of various cotton textile waste material per month.
• The COTTON. FROM BLUE TO GREEN denim drive, which accepts donations at various universities across the country. Last fall, more than 30,000 denim pieces were collected.

Before the denim actually arrives at Bonded Logic, it is restored to its original loose fiber form. The reprocessed fiber arrives in 500-pound bales. After being treated with a borate solution, which makes the material fire and mildew resistant, the fibers are mixed with special bonding fibers and put through a bonding oven to form them into a batt. The batts are packaged and shipped to distributors to be sold.

Bonded Logic also works with Cotton Inc. and Habitat for Humanity in helping build new homes for families affected by Hurrican Katrina. This spring, UltraTouch insultation will be provided to Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The new emphasis on green building has increased sales at Bonded Logic. “We were making green building products before anyone really knew what that was. Now the sale of [UltraTouch] grows on an average of 40 to 50 percent a year,” Desmond said.

Using Ultratouch during construction can help a building become LEED-certified. Some recent projects that used Bonded Logic insulation include:

• The University of Texas Health Science Center
• Organic Valley Corporate Headquarters in LaFarge, Wis.
• Student housing at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore.

In addition to UltraTouch, Bonded Logic also manufactures The Insulator Thermal/Acoustic Insulation, which can be used for automobiles, trucks, buses, RV’s, boats and aircraft and residential and commercial building. It can also be used to make a water heater jacket, which will reduce heat loss and save money.

How To Get Involved

Do some homework and find out if there are any denim drives happening in your town. Check out accesscotton.com to check if the COTTOM. FROM BLUE TO GREEN tour will be visiting a university near you. Also, you may ship your old jeans to Green Jeans Insulation in Wisconsin, which sends them to a processing facility and eventually to Bonded Logic.