This reduces water consumption, production costs, harmful emissions, waste, processing time, and manual labor. Levi’s has adopted this method. If a greater degree of bleaching is desired, an enzyme rinse of laccases can be used.

This alters the dye through oxidation without changing the integrity of the fabric so you don’t lose strength or elasticity like you would with bleach.

Sandblasted Jeans

Another way that jeans were distressed in the past was through sandblasting.

Luckily for the thousands of workers who have been harmed by this process, lasers plus eco-washing with active oxygen and ozone are able to recreate the vintage finish without the hours of manual work of sandpapering or sandblasting the fabric that was needed.

These new machines save 62% of the energy, 67% of the water, and 85% of the chemicals while taking less than half the time. 100-200 pairs of jeans can be completed in the same amount of time that it took 10 pairs to be manually scraped, or 30 pairs to be sandblasted.

What is denim made from?

We think of jeans as being made from cotton – and most of the time that is a correct assumption. However, today there are options that include new fabrications:

Recycled Cotton

Cotton is known to be the least sustainable fabric in existence. It’s responsible for more insecticide, pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer and water use than any other crop.

One of the industry’s responses is to incorporate recycled cotton with virgin cotton. The drawbacks are that recycled cotton doesn’t have the same strength as new cotton and it uses almost as many resources as virgin cotton.

Deadstock

Deadstock is the term used to describe fabric produced for another company that went unused. It’s a way to keep fabric out of landfills.

Organic Cotton

Organic cotton is grown without all the harsh chemicals that ordinary cotton uses. It also means that it’s grown without all the irrigation.