- All of these trash bags are filled with fabric
that was rescued from landfill.
And there's a lot of it.
FABSCRAP is a nonprofit with a mission to end textile waste.
Jessica Schreiber founded FABSCRAP in 2016,
and to date, the nonprofit has partnered
Jessica was inspired to start FABSCRAP
after working at New York's Department of Sanitation.
- I was running the city's clothing recycling program,
and brands were asking me what they could do
with all of their fabric waste that wasn't clothing yet.
Like all of the excess from the design process.
And there wasn't a great place to send them
or a solution for them,
and so FABSCRAP's trying to solve that problem.
- How big is this specific waste problem
that you're trying to solve?
- I mean, part of what we're trying to solve is that
A lot of businesses don't measure their waste,
or report their waste, or even figure out
what's inside of it.
And so that's part of what we're doing,
is just trying to characterize
what businesses are throwing away.
But the best estimate that we have
is that for every pound we throw away as a consumer,
a business threw away 40 pounds to get us that product.
- It sounds like this corporate waste side of things
isn't measured, and it's way worse than
what we kinda feel bad about as consumers.
- Totally.
And so that is where FABSCRAP works,
is in working with businesses to reduce their textile waste,
but also just making consumers aware
of how much businesses waste in creating products.
- So what are the main items
that you're getting from these companies?
- So we're getting all of the fabric waste before a garment.
And so it's fabric swatches from fabric mills,
excess yardage, mock-up garments,
where designers are just kind of playing with fabrics
and designs, unused yardage, end-of-life rolls,
cones of yarn, zippers, buttons, leathers,
really anything that's leftover
in the design process, we take.
- Is it challenging to have to recycle
all those different types of materials?
- It's not that many different types of materials, actually.
And so what we're doing is separating out fabric
from non-fabric, and usable from non-usable.
And in those broad categories,
we can pretty much redistribute or recycle
most of what we get.
I think, in general, we only send
about 3% of what we get to landfill.
- So you're sending 3% to landfill,
what is happening to everything else?
- We're able to reuse about 60% of what we get,
so we have sales from our warehouse,
where people can come and shop what's coming in.
We have a new store in Manhattan
where people can shop fabrics at thrift store prices.
And then the other 40% of the fabric
gets shredded and becomes insulation,
or carpet padding, or mattress stuffing.
And then really what goes to the landfill
is like stickers, staples, rubber bands,
binders, we can't reuse things like that.
All of the incoming material right now
is sorted with volunteer help.
We've had over 5,000 people come.
It's a lotta fashion students,
a lot of emerging designers, artists,
crafters, home sewers, quilters.
Some people who are just interested
in behind-the-scenes of fashion, or interested in waste.
It's open to the public.
So people can just sign up as they're interested,
and they're helping us sort things for reuse or recycling.
For finishing a session, which is three hours,
- So this is where the volunteers stand
during their three hour shifts,
and then in front of me are bins
that are for each category of material. So I see
They've thought of every possible outcome.
It's so inspiring to talk to you,
because it sounds like you had this idea, you saw a need,
and you created this amazing nonprofit.
What would be your advice to other people
who maybe have an idea to solve an environmental problem?
- I think that's the key,
is make sure whatever your idea is for a business
or an organization, is solving a problem.
And then talk to the people
who are involved in that problem.
FABSCRAP is the service that it is
because I asked brands,
"and what would make this convenient for you,
"and what would make this easy for you to do?"
And so if you can make it easy
for people to solve their own problems
and be part of a solution,
then I think you'll have real buy-in and more impact.
- And why is fabric waste so bad?
What's the big deal about it going to a landfill?
- Yeah, I think that's the core question
of why do we even care?
I think it's more and more fabrics are synthetic.
Polyester, in particular, is basically a plastic.
And it's different from other types of plastic,
in that it's not readily recyclable.
And it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces
that enter our waterways, basically never biodegrade.
And so that's one of the main reasons,
is just problems at the end of life.
But there's so much existing fabric
that if we could save all of the resources in creating more
by using what we already have,
I think there's a bigger impact there,
in the reuse, than in the actual recycling.
- Can we get a tour of this amazing warehouse?
I just see so many things that I'm so curious about.
- Yeah. - All right, let's do it.
- This is how we get the fabric.
Black bags for proprietary, brown bags for non-proprietary.
Everything gets weighed in,
and then transferred to these black bags
until we can sort it, so that
these reusable bags can go back out to brands.
The black bags make me cringe a little bit,
just because of all the plastic,
but it's the most affordable way
for us to store everything by brand.
We do reuse them over and over,
so for now, it's necessary evil.
- Always about trade-offs.
You guys are doing a good thing.
I'll let you pass on the plastic bags.
And then what about these clear ones over here?
- So this is all the material that has been sorted,
and this is what we'll take to the shredder for recycling.
This is the shredded fabric.
It's called shoddy, S-H-O-D-D-Y.
And shoddy is used here to stuff pillows or stuffed animals,
but more industrially, it's used in insulation,
in carpet padding, mattress stuffing.
- Wow. - So this is
our recycling option for now.
Until there's technology to go fabric back into fabric,
we're going fabric into other things.
- It's soft.
(Jessica laughs)
It's really comfortable, honestly.
I feel like I could take a nap.
- It would be.
I mean, they put it in mattresses.
- Oh, well there you go.
- So mattress stuffing. - That's a sustainable
mattress. - Yeah.
So this is all excess fabric that came in with the bags
and is totally reusable.
And so people who come in to shop
can just let us know how many yards they want,
and we'll cut them as much fabric as they want.
- And I'm seeing down here, we have some fur and things.
- Yeah, we keep all leathers
and all furs, real or fake, for reuse.
- What's the wildest thing you've found
in one of your bags?
- The other day, we found two neon pink little fox heads.
One of the weirder things that have come through.
But I think more just shocking is the quantity.
Like we'll get full leather hides,
and just because there's one little rough patch,
they couldn't use the whole thing.
- So sad. - So, more the quantity
than what the item is.
This is a newer section in our warehouse.
We started creating racks of mendables.
Working with a lotta brands,
we'll get sort of their mock-ups and samples,
so that they don't go directly to resale.
But we work with so many fashion students,
and a lot of home sewers,
who could mend something like this,
And so if you're willing to give these things
a little extra love, these are our mendable items.
And you can tell that designers
were just kind of playing with things,
like this side doesn't have the lace.
This side doesn't have the toggle.
This is an example where we got one of each size.
You can see where they were working on,
like this needed to be bigger.
This is an actual mock-up piece.
- Wow.
And how much are these costing?
- We still sell by $5 a pound.
And how often are you getting items that are this level?
- Every day.
If it is still in usable condition, we actually donate it.
It's just that things that are damaged,
that need to be fixed, end up here.
- [Lucy] I think this has been so cool,
and it's amazing to see
that when we walked in, - Thank you.
- there was volunteers everywhere.
- Yeah. - You said this
was a quiet day.
- This is a quiet day.
We have corporate groups who come in, and school groups.
We've had Girl Scouts come,
we had somebody for their birthday party,
as a sorting session.
- That's the cutest thing ever.
It's so amazing to see how you took a problem,
and you've turned into this space,
which is full of creativity and industry,
and it's really inspiring.
- Aw, thank you, and thank you for coming.
Yeah.
- All right, you guys go pack up.
I'll just be right here.
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