Recycling fashion: The town turning waste into clothes - BBC News

Fashion is one of the most polluting industries in the world. But a small town in Italy called Prato has built its fortune on transforming old scraps into new clothes, particularly knitwear and wool.

Could Prato represent a model for sustainable fashion?

Reporter: Sofia Bettiza

Editor: Sofia Bettiza

Filmed by: Paolo Patruno

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Most of our clothes
will never get recycled.

99 per cent will end up here,
dumped and burned in landfill.

Our Earth at this point is not capable

of absorbing the huge amount of clothing
that is produced each year.

But what if all those wasted clothes
could be saved

and turned into something else?

I've come to a town in Italy called Prato.

This place has mastered a method
to transform old scraps into new clothes.

This makes us feel proud.

What happens here is unique.

There are hundreds of companies
in this small district

and each specializes
in one specific aspect of the process,

whether it's spinning,
weaving or designing.

And today, incredibly,

this town says it processes 15 per cent
of all recycled clothes in the world.

So this is your shirt.

If it's too old for the charity shop,
it gets sent for recycling.

Here, it's sorted by colour,
torn apart, washed

and then the new recycled material
is taken and transformed

to make new clothes with minimum waste.

That was very quick.

Let's go through the process again.

You donate clothes,

they arrive here
from lots of different countries.

All the garments
that can be sold second-hand

are taken to this company nearby.

Here, not only are they
separated by colour,

but also by material.

Think these used to be trousers!

How many clothes do you recycle here?

About 25 tonnes every day.

The clothes are put in this.

It's called a carbonizing machine,

it eliminates impurities from the wool.

Then, they go through this.

It's like a giant washing machine.

They're shredded, cleaned
and dried.

This is the final result.

Your old clothes have been transformed
into these fine, fluffy wool fibres.

So at the end of the process,

this is what
the new recycled materials look like.

They're placed here,
until a fashion brand buys them

and uses them to make clothes.

Some people might say that
you are using trash to make clothes.

This might have been the case
a few years ago.

The word "rubbish" was an insult.

But now, many brands...
they buy my products because of it.

Because they know that reusing resources
is going to save the planet.

Recycling wool is great
for the environment.

Co2 emissions are more than halved

compared to when clothes
are made from new material.

We have an immediate impact
on animal welfare,

because you reduce the stress
that you have to put on the animals

to get the wool.

Almost complete elimination of dyes,

because the way the wool is recycled
is an assortment by colour.

This is a method that's been passed on
from father to son.

The culture in Prato
is the kind of culture

that we need
across the entire fashion industry

because it is based on collaboration
that are local,

but are capable of showing how,

if these things are taken
into a national or global scale,

the entire industry could benefit.

The people of this town
were forced to recycle clothes

because they couldn't afford the new ones.

Now their methods, which have been honed
over the past hundred years,

could offer a way forward
for a more sustainable fashion world.