Dirtball Fashion: Recycled Clothing for Conscious Dudes

We don’t talk about men’s clothing a lot around here, but dudes deserve good-looking clothes with a conscience, too! A new brand – Dirtball Fashion – makes men’s clothing from recycled fabric and plastic water bottles.

All of the clothing from Dirtball Fashion is made in the USA, which means you can also feel confident that your recycled tee or pair of jeans isn’t just good for the planet. It’s also good for the workers who make it.

Dirtball Fashion even makes a “Green Jean.” The denim jeans are 71 percent conventional cotton (boo!) and 29 percent recycled plastic water bottles (yay!). If you need a pair of khakis, though, the khaki version is a combo of recycled cotton and plastic bottles. Double yay!

The brand is working on expanding its outerwear line with a new piece that they’re calling “The 50” Jacket. The jacket is totally recyclable and each one is made from 50 recycled water bottles. Check out the Kickstarter video for The 50 Jacket below! If you want one, you can preorder and help support Dirtball Fashion’s newest addition to its line.

The new jacket is both recycled and recyclable, which is pretty freaking awesome. You can read a little bit more on how I think some clothing companies conflate these two things right here. A product that hits both of these criteria is definitely impressive.

Jeff McIntire Strasburg at our sister site Sustainablog wrote a more in-depth piece on The 50 Jacket and its potential impacts.

Turning PET Plastic Bottles into Recyclable Fashion: “the 50″ Jacket

by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg

For years, I’ve assumed that plastic recycling was largely a “lesser of two evils” thing: yes, it’s definitely better than sending it to a landfill, but plastics are inevitably “downcycled” into a lesser material… and that material will definitely end up in a landfill because it can’t be recycled. So, the only environmentally-friendly way to deal with that PET plastic water bottle is to avoid it completely – eventually, it’s going to end up in the ground, where it will never completely decompose… right?

Well, largely, but the folks at made-in-the-US eco-fashion brand Dirtball have undermined one (critical) part of that assumption: the further recyclability of recycled plastic. Their new “the 50″ jacket doesn’t just feature material made from (you guessed it) 50 used plastic water bottles; the material itself is recyclable (which the company will do if you send the jacket back to them). Joe Fox, founder of Dirtball, has the details:

As you can probably already tell, Joe’s video explanation is a part of the company’s Kickstarter campaign for “the 50″: they’re pre-selling the jacket, and, at certain reward levels, pairing it with other items in their collection. Given the unique nature of this product, and it’s status as “first piece of recyclable outerwear,” I expected it to be pretty pricey. But $175 strikes me as pretty reasonable… and if you don’t wait around, you can reserve one at the “early bird” price of $150.

Clothing recycling itself isn’t particularly revolutionary; recycled plastic fabric that can be further recycled is, though. Of course, in the case of a jacket, it still has to keep its wearer warm while still being comfortable and stylish: no one’s going to spend $175 to look like a dork. Assuming “the 50″ works on all of these fronts, I’d guess Dirtball is onto something…

What do you think? Would you buy one of these jackets? Let us know, and share any other thoughts you have…

You can find all of Dirtball Fashion’s clothing on their website.