Designers' New Recycling Rules: Zero Waste - Shelterpop

Designers' New Recycling Rules: Zero Waste - Shelterpop

Zero waste turns trash into treasure, beautiful treasure.

We all know that trends in interior design and home furnishings often follow what happens on the runway, so it doesn't surprise me that the latest fashion design aspiration, zero waste, is also being adopted in the home. According to an article in the New York Times, zero waste in fashion is loosely defined as striving "to create clothing patterns that leave not so much as a scrap of fabric on the cutting room floor."

But this is not just another Project Runway challenge. In fact, it's a battle against the industry. This same article points out some grim environmental statistics such as "about 15 to 20 percent of the fabric used to produce clothing winds up in the nation's landfills because it's cheaper to dump the scraps than to recycle them." Artist Lisa Solomon and her business partner Candice Gold have recently launched MODify/d, a company that creates home goods from those discarded fashion industry scraps -- a harmonious union between the fashion and home design industries.