8 bottles = 1 Levi's WaterLess Jeans

Levi's introduces innovative denim collection

made from recycled bottles as the next chapter in its sustainable design initiative

The Levi’s® brand (www.levi.in) introduces a new collection of denim incorporating post-consumer waste, specifically recycled plastic bottles and food trays. Each Levi’s® Waste<LessTM product will include a minimum of 20 percent post-consumer recycled content, or, on average, eight 12 to 20-ounce bottles per jean. The Levi’s® Waste<LessTM products, which will be available for both men and women as part of the Levi’s® Spring 2013 collection, represent the next chapter in the company’s ongoing commitment to sustainable design.

The Spring 2013 Levi’s® Waste<Less collection will utilize over 3.5 million recycled bottles.

Through the company’s partners, PET plastic, or polyethylene terephthalate materials – including brown beer bottles, green soda bottles, clear water bottles and black food trays – are collected through municipal recycling programs across the United States. The bottles and food trays are sorted by color, crushed into flakes, and made into a polyester fiber. Next, the polyester fiber is blended with cotton fiber, which is finally woven with traditional cotton yarn by Cone Denim to create the denim used in the Levi’s® Waste<Less jeans and trucker jackets.  The color of the bottles used adds a beautiful undertone to the denim fabric creating a unique finish in the final product.

The new Waste<LessTM collection is only the latest chapter in the company’s commitment to doing more with less. In 2009, Levi Strauss & Co. introduced “A Care Tag for our Planet,” an initiative to educate consumers on how to clean their clothes with less environmental impact; it also encourages them to donate used jeans to Goodwill rather than throwing them out. This initiative was followed up by the development of Water<LessTM, a revolutionary finishing technique designed to reduce the use of water in the finishing process by up to 96 percent for some styles. This year, the Levi’s® Water<LessTM collection saved over 360 million liters of water. Additionally, the company is a member of the Better Cotton Initiative, which reduces water and pesticide use during the cotton growing process, and economically supports hundreds of thousands of cotton farmers. To date, LS&Co. has blended Better Cotton into more than 5 million pairs of jeans.

Together with Coca-Cola and legendary musician and producer,Will.I.Am, announced a new partnership through Ekocycle, a global initiative designed to educate consumers about everyday recycling choices and change the way consumers think about and treat waste.

This product will be available globally in April 2013 at Levi’s® stores and on Levi.com