By Korrin Bishop
Waste is a world concern. It’s estimated that about 92 million tons of textile waste leads to landfills yearly, together with roughly 15% of scrap material that will get discarded through the manufacturing course of for clothes, luggage, and different objects. Meanwhile, round 11 million metric tons of plastics land within the ocean yearly.
At Gossamer Gear, we acknowledge that it’s our duty to cut back our environmental impression. Our slogan “take less. do more.” serves as a reminder to take care of our relentless drive to remove the pointless in life and deal with what’s essential and worthy of doing to serve our clients, our group, and our wild locations.
In addition to persevering with to help gear restore by means of our partnership with Rugged Thread, we’re excited to be rapidly rising our transition to recycled materials and supplies. These new choices allow us to make the identical nice gear however with a decrease environmental footprint. We invite you all to take much less, do extra—and scale back, reuse, recycle with us!
Why We’re Making the Switch to Recycled Fabrics
As a part of our sustainability efforts, we’re dedicated to remaining on the forefront of recent methods, improvements, and applied sciences that enable for safer and extra sustainable enterprise development practices. Some of those initiatives embrace:
- ISO 9001:2015 licensed services
- PE/EVA foam created from 50% recycled plastic resin
- OEKO-TEX licensed umbrella materials
- Fabrics and trims sourced from bluesign® companions
- BetterWork licensed backpack facility
Incorporating extra recycled supplies into our merchandise is a logical subsequent step that aligns with our values. As our CEO Jonathan Schmid defined, “The technology is finally here that enables us to lessen our impact and strengthen our commitment to conserving our wild places without sacrificing the durability of our fabrics.”
We launched this effort in 2023 with our Jet Line, together with the Vagabond Jet Daypack and Bumster Jet Fanny Pack. These merchandise had been switched to recycled 210D Robic nylon, and are readier than ever for light-weight city adventures, workplace commutes, and classy journey. However, we knew these two fan favorites had been simply the beginning of our journey into recycled supplies.
Recycled Fabrics 101: What We’re Incorporating
Many of our merchandise are switching to recycled Robic nylon material that’s licensed as 100% recycled by the Global Recycling Standard (GRS). More particularly, the supplies embrace:
- 70D material that’s 100% post-consumer recycled Robic nylon from ocean plastics. Discarded fishing nets are gathered and repurposed into a brand new fiber that we will then use. You can be taught extra about this course of in this brief video.
- 100D and 210D materials are 100% pre-consumer recycled Robic nylon. This means they’re created from manufacturing waste. You can be taught extra about these materials right here.
- All materials have C0 WR (PFAS-free) on the face and 1,500mm PU on the again.
Our recycled materials have the identical energy and sturdiness as our previous backpacks, however at the moment are significantly better for the setting.
In addition to utilizing recycled Robic nylon, we’ve additionally dedicated to utilizing the scrap material that outcomes from making our packs for quite a lot of smaller light-weight merchandise we all know our group will love!
Our Odditty Bags use material left over from developing our packs to supply light-weight storage sacks to be used on and off path. Enjoy enjoyable shade combos, high-performing supplies, and the information that you just’re serving to scale back waste by means of reuse—all whereas organizing your tent stakes, studying glasses, first assist objects, and different path wants.
Need a easy approach to carry money and playing cards whereas touring or stopping in a path city? Look no additional than the Dollar Collar. This small, zippered pockets is hooked up to cording to put on as a practical necklace or stylish cross-body bag. A hoop hooked up to the lanyard helps you to join your keys for straightforward discovering. Designed with leftover material from developing our packs, this pockets helps scale back and reuse for the planet!
Find Recycled Fabrics in These Gossamer Gear Products
As talked about earlier, we launched our transfer to recycled materials with the Jet Line in 2023. Since then, we’ve been switching every thing to recycled supplies as we’ve positioned new manufacturing orders.
As of December 2024, all of our merchandise have recycled materials besides:
- Pre-2024 variations of backpacks and equipment
- Murmur
- Fast Kumo in S/M
- Minimalist in Gray
- Bumsters in Gray
- Feedbag
- Hipbelt Pocket
- Tyvek merchandise
- All shelters
We’re wanting ahead to persevering with to search out modern methods to cut back waste and reuse and recycle supplies. You can at all times try our sustainability web page for the most recent updates or attain out to the workforce at help@gossamergear.com you probably have any questions!
Have a Lighter Impact and Lighter Load With Gossamer Gear’s Recycled Fabric Backpacks
As we proceed to make updates to our line of backpacks and equipment, we’re at all times on the lookout for the place we will take advantage of impression with what we do.
Have any steps you’re taking to cut back your environmental footprint whereas having fun with our shared wild areas? We’d love to listen to about it! Share your perception with us by tagging Gossamer Gear on social media (@gossamergear) and utilizing the hashtag #takelessdomore.
Looking for extra out of doors inspiration? Check out a few of our different articles on the Light Feet weblog: