Photo courtesy (above): Bernard Spragg/Creative Commons
At his former job, Sam Palmer noticed a problem: Excess clothing had created an abundance of wasted materials for companies.
In 2012, Palmer co-founded ReFleece, a lifestyle company focused on upcycling other businesses’ wasted or excess materials, with Jennifer Feller. Their goal was to take items that were seemingly unusable and use their materials for something new.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 17 million tons of textile waste was produced in 2018 alone.
Left: Alex Stole climbing up a mountain (Photo courtesy ReFleece)
Palmer got inspiration for ReFleece by observing textile waste at Patagonia, his former employer.
“It would be like ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ just bales and bales and bales of material,” he said.
After working with Patagonia for three years, Palmer started working on ReFleece during his time at IDEO Global Design and Innovation company.
“Working with them really opened up my understanding of what a business could be,” he said.
The results of ReFleece’s trials started with Kindle cases, and expanded into other items such as tote bags, wallets, and iPad sleeves. Now, ReFleece has expanded to an online marketplace with multiple collaborators. On their marketplace, Palmer said any item that is not worn enough to need recycling could be sold on the platform. Users can also choose a percent of the price to go to environmental nonprofits.
Each product is designed using recycled materials from one of Palmer’s partners. Once they have this material, their team sorts all the fabric by color. Each product is individually sewn together from those materials. Because ReFleece uses recycled materials, each product is slightly different in color.
As ReFleece gained traction, more companies began to reach out to Palmer to find use for their wasted items. They also made connections at conferences where other outdoor retailers would come together, helping them expand their list of affiliations.
“We’re looking to inspire other companies to reuse their materials as well,” he said. “It would be great for not only brands, but consumers, to think of us, and say ‘let’s get it to another life.’ ”