With the new season comes a new project for the Apparel Merchandising and Design Association! Along with three other universities, the ladies and gentlemen of the Illinois State AMDA is teaming up with Cotton Inc. to promote the Blue Jeans Go Green™ initiative. Now through October 31, AMDA will be hosting events and setting up tables around campus that will be collecting used denim that will be recycled into UltraTouch™ Denim Insulation. The Denim Insulation gets used to help build houses across the nation.
In 2006, the program was created to make better use out of America’s old denim products. Since the beginning of the campaign, there has been over one million denim pieces collected. The goal for each university is to collect 500+ pairs of denim jeans over the timespan of eight weeks.
AMDA President, Carrie Hacker, has high expectations for the club and ISU. I asked her the goals she wishes to achieve. She said, “Setting goals for a club is easy but accomplishing them is completely different. My biggest goal for AMDA, regarding this project, is to exceed our denim collection goal of 500 pieces.” Carrie also explained the Blue Jeans Go Green™ as a whole and expressed her biggest hopes for the event.
“My biggest hopes for this event would be to spread awareness of the Blue Jeans Go Green program. The denim that is collected is repurposed into something that can be useful versus having it sitting in a landfill. One of the many problems within the fashion industry is the unnecessary waste and projects such as this are a great way to counteract that problem.”
Gather your old jeans Illinois State and be on the lookout for the Blue Jeans Go Green™ events happening around campus. Keep an eye out as well for the donation bins throughout the campus and community. Any contribution is much appreciated!