Narrator: We make over 1 billion pairs of jeans every year.
And most of them wind up in landfills.
That's partially because cotton
is notoriously hard to recycle.
The process is lengthy and expensive.
But some in the fashion industry
want to make a greener pair of blue jeans.
Artistic Fabric Mills, AFM for short,
is one of the first companies in Pakistan
to repurpose old cotton into new denim.
And that's a big deal,
because this country imports more used clothes
than anywhere else in the world.
So how do you recycle jeans?
It starts at massive facilities like this one in Karachi,
where workers sort 25 metric tons of used clothes every day.
Most of these items were donated
to charities like the Salvation Army in other countries.
Oftentimes, whatever can't be sold
in American and European thrift stores can be sold
to grading centers in Pakistan.
Purses, sweaters, pants and more get separated
into hundreds of categories.
Items are bundled based on quality and type.
Then they are shipped to places like
this huge secondhand market in Ghana.
Here, local vendors bid on bales –
then try to sell their wares for a profit.
Narrator: Back in Pakistan,
the lowest-grade garments are sold for cheap to recyclers,
typically to be shredded and used in things like insulation.
And where most see rags, AFM sees riches.
It buys used jeans from this local grading company.
Narrator: At AFM, workers cut down the garments.
The company can't process stretched jeans
mixed with polyester or nylon,
so it only accepts denim that is at least 98% cotton.
It takes around three pairs of used jeans
to make one pair of recycled pants.
A quick pass through this conveyor belt
cuts these long strips of fabric into small pieces.
Each step aims to grind the pants back into cotton.
This compactor presses the cotton into large bales.
The company says these machines can process
up to 800 metric tons of used clothes every month.
But the recycled fibers are too short to be spun into yarn,
so the company has to add virgin cotton into the mix.
When AFM first bought a cotton recycling plant in 2015,
it could only incorporate 5% recycled material into its blend.
Nowadays, it can mix in as much as 30% used cotton.
This machine called a Blendomat
skims off the top layer of fiber from multiple bales
to ensure consistency.
This particular batch of denim will use 8% recycled material
and 92% virgin cotton.
In the spinning room,
a carding machine draws the blended cotton into a web,
then stretches it into thick ropes called slivers.
The ring-spinning process turns rope into yarn.
Though largely automated now,
this method is based on ancient yarn-spinning techniques.
The fiber is twisted tightly
and then wrapped around a spool called a bobbin.
Workers place larger spools
on a metal rack called a creel.
Then they wind the threads around a beam.
One of these can hold
over 4,000 strands of yarn side by side.
Now, it's time for a bath.
AFM dyes its fabric with recycled indigo,
eliminating wastewater from the dyeing process entirely.
Dania: We are making this fabric
by extracting the indigo from our dye textile waste
and then reusing it to dye a new fabric.
Narrator: The strips appear green at first
because indigo dye is not water-soluble.
The threads will only turn blue
when they come into contact with oxygen.
That's why the ropes are brought high up into the air.
The process is called skying.
These rollers press out the excess water.
Then each rope lands in its own bucket.
In the rope-dyeing department,
production is around 70,000 meters per day.
Typically, the indigo-dyeing process is associated
with massive water consumption and pollution.
Although laws prohibit it,
some Pakistani factories pump untreated water
into sewers, city canals, rivers, and groundwater,
contaminating already scarce supplies.
Narrator: Many factories lack the space
or resources to treat their water.
But AFM says it purifies around 300,000 gallons
of wastewater in a giant treatment plant every day.
Up to 70% of this water is used in its recycling process.
Back at the factory, an automated loom mixes dyed thread
with white thread, typically in a ratio of three to one.
This gives jeans their signature twill pattern.
The fabric wraps around giant wheels,
then gets layered into sheets.
In total, AFM produces 36 million meters of fabric a year.
That's nearly enough to circle the entire planet.
The finished cloth gets cut into various sizes and styles.
Using cutting-edge software,
lasers etch patterns into the jeans.
This technology eliminates the need for toxic chemicals
often used to create a stressed vintage look.
AFM uses less water in its finishing process as a result.
Saving water is crucial in Pakistan.
Much of the country relies on the Indus River
for irrigation and hydropower.
But extreme droughts mean parts of it are already drying up.
It takes 10,000 liters of water
to make a single pair of jeans,
so cutting back on water consumption can have a huge impact.
Eco-friendly washers give the jeans a more distressed look.
Narrator: Then, a blower dries the jeans
while they hang in the air.
Think of it like a car wash for pants.
Workers add the finishing touches, from buttons to labels.
From there, they're off to stores across Europe,
North America, and Australia.
Once used jeans get a second shelf life.
While it may look like AFM has its process
down to a science, it wasn't always that way.
The now multimillion-dollar company
started as a small garment shop in 1949.
Ahmed Omer and his wife, Hajra Ahmed,
sold handmade leather hats and bags to sailors
out of their home.
In 1972, they opened their first garment factory.
Today, it's run by their son, Iqbal Ahmed.
Hajra's role in the company
would later inspire her
granddaughters, Farah and Haya Iqbal,
to follow in her footsteps.
The two sisters are now directors for AFM.
My grandmother would actually
manage the operations
at that time, and then it grew into factories.
When women apply to AFM for jobs,
not just on a worker level, but for management roles,
they do it because they know that it's a possibility here.
Narrator: AFM has also been ahead of the curve
when it comes to manufacturing sustainable denim.
In 2015, it became one of the first companies in Pakistan
to own this, a cotton recycling plant.
From there, producing recycled denim
became priority No. 1.
AFM isn't alone in its mission to recycle textiles.
Other factories in Pakistan are investing
in cotton recycling as well.
Haya: It's become a real need.
And it's not just something that looks good
on your portfolio, but it's something that is now required.
Narrator: Even big-name companies like H&M
have invested millions in new recycling technology.
At the company's store in Stockholm,
customers pay to have old clothes transformed into new ones.
But recycling a single garment can take multiple days.
H&M wants to move to 100% recycled
or sustainably sourced materials by 2030.
But scaling up recycled production is expensive.
AFM has a decades-long head start.
The costs of its factories, though massive,
were spread out over many years.
Haya: At the time, nobody was doing it.
No customers even understood why it was a necessity.
But it was my father's vision that he stuck his ground,
and he made this massive investment,
because he could tell where the world was heading.
Narrator: AFM says it has the capacity
to create half a million pairs of jeans every month.
But its actual production is around 300,000.
For recycled jeans to become a large-scale success,
more companies need to get involved.
Right now, less than 1% of all clothes
are turned into recycled garments.
An even simpler solution is to buy less.
Haya: I firmly believe that consuming less,
but of better quality, is the way forward.
And that's because this is not to discourage people
from buying more. But if they buy better,
and they buy better quality, once somebody is done
with a garment, that can always be resold secondhand or donated.
It just increases the life of a garment
if you buy better quality.