Founded in 2009, Looptworks is a champion of the circular economy. A certified B Corporation and 2022 Best for the World award winner, Looptworks places as much value on protecting people and our environment as we do on growing a profitable business. Our mission — to transform the world's pre & post-consumer excess textile materials into premium circular textiles. Looptworks aims to eliminate global textile waste while inspiring people and businesses to reduce their impact on the planet. We provide cost-neutral, zero-waste-to-landfill solutions for some of the world’s biggest brands, including the NBA, Delta and Southwest Airlines, Walmart, Google, Eddie Bauer, Reformation Adidas, Lo & Sons, and many others.
External link for Looptworks
17401 NE Halsey St
Gresham, Oregon 97230, US
1. Only Buy What You Need 2. Make Sure Your Purchases Contain Recycled Materials 3. Go Circular - join Buy Back Programs & Donate Your Old Clothing
Walk the talk this year! EcoAthlete Champions Phoebe Anderson, Tina Muir, and Seyi Smith share 5 simple practices to reduce the environmental impacts of your shoes. Learn how to transform your footwear into a force for good. #clothes4good, #climatecomeback
Looptworks applauds Representative Chellie Pingree for asking the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review issues related to #textile waste and #recycling. Its recent report describes (1) how textile waste affects the environment, (2) how and why the rate of textile waste in the U.S. has changed in the last two decades, and (3) federal actions to reduce textile waste and advance textile recycling, and what opportunities exist for entities to collaborate. While data on textile waste are limited, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) textile waste data estimates that in 2018, 17 million tons of textiles were generated in the US, with only 15% recycled and the rest either incinerated or sent to landfills for disposal. According to federal, academic, nonprofit, and industry sources, textile waste has increased because of multiple factors, including a shift to a fast fashion business model, limited, decentralized systems for collecting and sorting textiles, and the infancy of textile recycling technologies. Looptworks is poised to lead the US efforts to recycle textile waste, with its new Gresham, OR-based recycling operation coming online in spring 2025. Looptworks is the West Coast’s first textile-to-textile recycling facility and the first and only US textile-to-textile recycling facility that will be able to process all the leading animal, man-made cellulosic, plant, and synthetic fibers - even blends - into high-quality recycled fiber for the yarn spinning and non-wovens markets. We look forward to working with Representative Pingree and the Congressional Slow Fashion Caucus in any way to help further the availability of textile recycling in the U.S. #textilerecycling #innovation #textilecircularity
👏 We’re encouraged to see the GAO’s recognition of textile waste as a critical issue that demands federal attention. The report highlights the same challenges we’ve been tackling for years: the rapid rise of fast fashion and the lack of adequate recycling infrastructure. As the GAO recommended, a national textile waste management strategy could be a transformative step toward systemic change. Collaboration between federal agencies like the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and others, alongside support from US Congress, is essential to developing scalable solutions that address the environmental and economic impacts of textile waste. As a pioneer in "using what already exists," we believe that innovation and legislative support can turn this challenge into an opportunity. Looptworks is committed to partnering with municipalities, brands, and policymakers to build a sustainable future where no textile goes to waste. Together, we can close the loop and create meaningful change. #textilerecycling #innovation #circularfashion
Big news! 📢 The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) just released its first-ever report on textile waste, fast fashion's negative impact, and recycling challenges—representing the first federal acknowledgment of textile waste as a significant issue in the U.S. The report reveals a 50% increase in U.S. textile waste from 2000 to 2018, citing fast fashion and inadequate recycling infrastructure as key contributors. GAO recommends the creation of an interagency mechanism to coordinate federal efforts, involving the EPA, NIST, and the Departments of State and Energy, and advises Congress to consider a national textile waste management strategy. Want the full scoop? Don’t miss tomorrow's Week/End recap, where we break down the need-to-know sustainability news across fashion, business, and ethics—all in ONE email. Not subscribed yet? This link is for you! 😉 ⤵️ 📨 https://lnkd.in/gXrsqnmM
Kudos to the Fashion for Good team, FastFeetGrinded, and the team of participating brands for these insightful outcomes! 🌟 At Looptworks, we very much feel the pulse of your observations—particularly with material recovery challenges and how necessary collaborative innovation is to actually drive circular solutions. This is really indicative of a very important step forward that your work is doing for the industry: the focus on sequencing multiple technologies and filling data gaps in impact assessments—in themselves, really inspire because it's the systemic approach required to tackle such a complex challenge. Exciting opportunities exist to translate the lessons from apparel into the footwear space, and this sets the path toward scalable, sustainable change. Cheers to unlocking new possibilities in footwear circularity; we will keep an eye on this space for your continued success! #textilecircularity #footwearcircularity #innovation
What did we learn from our collaborative pilot with FastFeetGrinded? Footwear is traditionally made using a vast array of different materials, resulting in design complexity that makes it difficult to recover materials in a technically and economically feasible manner. In addition, the lack of widespread footwear recycling solutions and infrastructure hinders the recovery of footwear products. Therefore, collaborative and innovative efforts are needed to enhance footwear circularity. To tackle this challenge, Fashion for Good launched a collaborative pilot with partners adidas, Inditex, Target and Zalando, in collaboration with innovator FastFeetGrinded, aimed at testing and validating the footwear recycling process and supporting the uptake of recycled materials in footwear. The brands closely evaluated the outputs of FastFeetGrinded’s process for quality and purity, aiming to showcase the potential of FastFeetGrinded’s footwear recycling technology and pave the way for scalable solutions. Some of our reflections and findings from the project were: ✅ Open-loop recycling is achievable using purely mechanical recycling, however, for closed-loop recycling further technology advancements are necessary to achieve higher purity outputs. ✅ Sequencing of multiple technologies along the footwear waste supply chain, from waste aggregation through recycling will help overcome some of the performance challenges. ✅ Impact assessments for footwear recycling are challenging due to limited base case data availability in the industry. As such, complexities arise with evaluating emerging recycling technologies through a comparative LCA. ✅ Sustainable innovation in footwear is fairly nascent compared to apparel and there is a lot of work to be done. We have an opportunity to leverage our learnings from the apparel space to build an ecosystem that takes into account the interdependencies and nuances at each stage of the production process. Collaborative action is the key to unlocking this approach which is why Fashion for Good is working closely with all stakeholders on this topic. Watch this space as we head into 2025! Click here to read our reflections: https://lnkd.in/ekMAvVFv Project Lead: Jyotsna Gopinath Sophie van Kol #Sustainability #Innovation #FashionForGood #circularity #futuretech
Thank you, Amanda B. Clem, for highlighting this project! Collaborating on upcycling initiatives with partners like NAU!, adidas, Eddie Bauer, Lo & Sons, & PEARL iZUMi played a pivotal role in shaping our journey to where we are today with our new textile recycling facility. While we’ll miss the creativity of those projects, our focus now is on driving greater impact by advancing textile circularity and creating the next generation of recycled materials. Partners like you continue to inspire and propel us forward—thank you for your support! #textilerecycling #textilecircularity #innovation
One of the projects that I'm most proud of from my time working at Nau was initiating a partnership with local Portland textile recyclers Looptworks, to upcycle old Nau garments (which had been in storage for 5-10 years 😳) into new accessories (which the brand's collections were lacking.) These bags were *in production* when Nau closed down U.S. business operations in February, and I am still disappointed that I wasn't able to guide this project all the way through... but—I just saw that they are now being sold in S. Korea! (That's where Nau is now based. Screenshots from the Nau Korea website.) I hope it's a success and starts an upcycling trend there. Nau's was one of the last upcycling projects that Looptworks took on before moving into their brand-new textile recycling facility in Gresham, where they will be focusing more on fiber to fiber recycling and circularity! It's very exciting business. Working in the apparel industry is a wild time. Clothing production and waste are at an all-time high; we don't need more new clothes from virgin resources. Period. We DO need to support the development of textile recycling and circular supply chains. It's an action we can take immediately to significantly reduce the industry's impact on the environment. If you're reading this and work with a brand on the west coast: give Looptworks a call and start talking seriously about creating your circular material loop *now*! And, for creative upcycling partnerships, look to the icons at Portland Garment Factory who just released a similar garment upcycle collab with Cotopaxi. ⭐
Looptworks enjoyed meeting so many textile sustainability leaders at the Textile Exchange conference last week and hosting a field trip to our HQ in Portland, OR. The event included a tour of our soon-to-open facility and a discussion about the needs and state of the U.S. textile recycling industry. What’s clear is that this is just the beginning, and the need for options and expansion is coming fast and furiously down the pike. Scott Hamlin, Suzy Off, Mitch Wise, Alyssa Augustine, David Dean, Kelly Hill, Sandra Marquardt #circularfashion #textilerecycling #innovation #textilecircularity
It has been an exciting year full of unique challenges, but we have an incredible team of creative problem solvers who have pushed and pulled us to within sight of the finish line! In the coming weeks, we will begin trials, process the first materials through our machinery, and transform surplus textiles into truly recycled inputs for the next generation of products. UPDATE: Come see us at the Textile Exchange conference. DM us on the app and/or meet us after session 4a: Building Better Logistics for Textile-to-Textile Recycling. Scott Hamlin, Alyssa Augustine, Mitch Wise, Sandra Marquardt #innovation #textilerecycling #textilecircularity #protectourplanet
Textile Exchange is closing the post-conference field trip registration this Monday, 10/21! If you’re involved in textile recycling and attending the conference, we urge you to register ASAP for the tour of our brand-new center in Portland, Oregon. Here, you can check out our system, which efficiently recycles pre-consumer textiles across a wide variety of fiber and material types, including blends. 🎉 Following the tour, we’ll host a brainstorming workshop with circularity/textile recycling leaders to catalyze the next steps. There’s no time to waste! Sign Up: https://lnkd.in/edBsPFUr #textilerecycling #textilecircularity #innovation #textilewaste Meet: Suzy Off Scott Hamlin Sandra Marquardt Kelley Purdy Ron Hawk Mitch Wise
At our upcoming conference, attendees can choose from a range of field trips designed to provide first-hand insights into what more sustainable materials production and processing might look like. From regenerative farming to closed-loop recycling, these experiences are a chance to connect with the people and places making a difference. Field trips are an integral part of our conference agenda because we believe that learning can’t happen solely within the walls of our plenary rooms – there’s no substitute for getting out on the ground and seeing innovation and challenges in action. Registration for field trips opens next week, and conference attendees will be notified via email.
Field trip registration is now open! If you are attending the Textile Exchange Conference, be sure to sign up for the Looptworks field trip. This exclusive opportunity offers an inside look at our U.S.-based system, which efficiently recycles pre-consumer textiles across various material types, including blends. Experience firsthand our comprehensive, sustainable solutions—all within a zero-waste-to-landfill model. 🎉 Following the tour, we will host a short workshop with circularity/textile recycling leaders to catalyze next-step discussions, as attendees will be brimming with ideas following the conference. Sign Up: https://lnkd.in/edBsPFUr #textilerecycling #textilecircularity #innovation
At our upcoming conference, attendees can choose from a range of field trips designed to provide first-hand insights into what more sustainable materials production and processing might look like. From regenerative farming to closed-loop recycling, these experiences are a chance to connect with the people and places making a difference. Field trips are an integral part of our conference agenda because we believe that learning can’t happen solely within the walls of our plenary rooms – there’s no substitute for getting out on the ground and seeing innovation and challenges in action. Registration for field trips opens next week, and conference attendees will be notified via email.
Signed. Sealed. Delivered! 📣 Way to go, California! 🤸♀️ We couldn’t be more thrilled about the signing of California’s Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 (SB 707)! This groundbreaking law is a massive win for sustainability, ushering in the USA’s first Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) textile recycling program and setting a bold new standard for handling textile waste. We’ve been waiting for a moment like this—where brands, legislators, and communities unite to embrace a genuinely circular economy! SB 707 is more than just a policy; it's a game-changer that will dramatically reduce landfill waste and open up opportunities for upcycling, repair, and recycling across California. The outpouring of support from brands like IKEA and environmental advocates proves that this is the start of a new era in sustainable fashion. We’re beyond excited to be at the forefront of this transformation, helping build a future where textiles are reused and repurposed instead of wasted. Let’s do this! Who's next? Oregon? #textilecircularity #textilerecycling #innovation https://lnkd.in/gQqf_UQQ