Another way to reuse blue jeans
By: Sara Patterson
Issue date: 10/7/09 Section: News
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The student organization is collecting denim jeans that will be turned into housing insulation for community building projects today through Nov. 2.
Student volunteers will collect the first load of jeans outside of the Tiger Den from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. today. There will be two more pick-ups at the same location, one on Oct. 15 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the other on Oct. 28 from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The U of M is one of nine universities across the nation holding denim drives this fall for the "Cotton. From Blue to Green" campaign. Cotton, Inc., a company that advocates cotton use in clothing, is sponsoring the campaign, which is now in its fourth year.
U of M Habitat president Brittany Dawson said she connected with Cotton Inc. over the summer to organize the project.
"I like the idea because the denim is for habitat houses," Dawson said. "We all have old denim that we can't wear anymore. It's just sitting in our closet, and this is such a good cause, you might as well give it to something that will benefit people."
Dawson has already donated four pairs of jeans and plans to clean out her closet when she goes home to Crockett, Tenn. for fall break. The club's goal is to garner 550 pieces of denim by the November deadline, enough to fully insulate a three-bedroom house, and then some.
Cotton, Inc. will perform the actual denim-to-insulation conversion after the deadline.
Jameica Johnson, two-year member of The University of Memphis Habitat for Humanity Club, said she saw a connection between the club's mission and Cotton's campaign.
"It's interesting to think of denim to use as insulation for a house," the junior social work major said. "It kind of blows my mind."
Besides setting up pick-up booths, the club is working to secure areas around campus for drop-off boxes. There are already boxes on the first and ninth floors of Wilder Tower, and Dawson said the Panhellenic Building and Recreation Center are next on the list.
Donors will receive a 25 percent discount coupon at Vanity clothing stores for each pair of jeans they give. Vanity's website says 27,361 jeans have been donated, enough to insulate 54 houses.
"There're a lot of incentives to give us a piece of denim," Dawson said.
The first year of the drive, nearly 15,000 pieces of denim were donated, pressed into 1,000-pound bales, processed and returned to their original fiber state.
The first batch of recycled insulation went into 30 homes in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. More than 38,000 pieces were donated last year and this year Cotton, Inc. partnered with National Geographic Kids Magazine to try and set a Guinness World Record.
To date, the denim drives have collected nearly 100,000 denim pieces nationwide, producing insulation used in new homes for more than 180 families in the Gulf Coast region.