Charity finds a use for waste.

Byline: JOE HARWOOD The Register-Guard

Already at the top of the heap when it comes to repairing and reusing products many people consider to be junk, St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County is adding a layer of fluff to its ecological pedigree.

The nonprofit Catholic organization this week launched a product it calls EcoFiber, a shredded cotton fluff made from denim scraps, for use as batting in furniture and stuffing for rebuilt mattresses.

The denim comes from the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution where prisoners make Prison Blues jeans and other clothing.

St. Vincent operates a mattress factory at 90170 Prairie Road in Eugene where it strips old mattresses to their metal and wood frames and rebuilds them. The location also houses a woodshop where workers craft furniture from scrap wood.

The organization also repairs used appliances and cars and operates a recycled glass foundry in Eugene.

St. Vincent hooked up with the prison system and its denim waste in a quirky way.

Seeking to lower production and landfill costs, St. Vincent business development director Lyle Harris dreamed up a novel idea: Take old, donated clothing that can't be resold at thrift stores and shred it into a poofy, cotton fiber for use as stuffing for pet beds.

"St. Vincent handles 300,000 pounds of clothing a month," Harris said.

"It's sorted for thrift stores and other markets, but a certain amount ends up in the landfill without projects like this," he said.

But then Harris learned from Diane Garcia, director of the Waste to Work Partnership, a nonprofit program through Portland State University, that the prison system was generating waste denim.

The partnership works to improve efficiency and generate jobs by creating markets for unwanted materials.

Garcia, based in Eugene, had previously worked with the Oregon Department of Corrections to help cut its waste stream and save on landfill fees.

Garcia suggested that the folks at St. Vincent take advantage of the 10,000 pounds of denim scraps the Pendleton prison was throwing away each month.

"I found out denim was a great fiber and they were able to put (an agreement) together," Garcia said.

Harris was giddy about the supply of never-before-used denim scraps.

Harris said higher quality furniture uses cotton or synthetic Dacron batting, and denim is an excellent cotton fiber.

He now plans to use the fluff from the shredded denim for mattress stuffing at the St. Vincent operation on Prairie Road. He'll also begin using the fluff from used clothes and old mattresses to make the pet beds, dubbed "Dogma Dog Beds" that will be sold at regional St. Vincent thrift stores.

Harris sees a broad niche for the denim fluff. "I think there is a good market for this in the upholstery and furniture industry," he said. "We're looking for companies interested in purchasing the recycled fiber or firms interested in buying the batting."

Harris said he's already talking to some furniture makers interested in buying the denim batting, adding he hopes to sell the product regionally and even nationally.

"This will replace the polyurethane we now use" in rebuilding mattresses, Harris said. "It will be more economical for us and produce a higher quality product." Polyurethane is an oil-based product.

To shred the scraps, Harris and Art Taylor, facilities supervisor at the Prairie Road factory, lashed together a Rube Goldberg-line of nearly antique textile machinery.

Harris bought three textile shredders from a defunct woolen mill in Jefferson, and a California firm donated a machine that turns the cotton fiber into fluffy sheets. All are at least 50 years old.

"I used every piece of baling wire in my pocket to get these running," Harris said.

The process works like this: The clothing scraps are fed into the shredder line, which tears the fibers into a fluff.

The California machine takes the fluff and forms it into a thin web, which is then laid out on "lappers," which blend the thin layers. The layered fluff is pressed together to form a 4-foot-long sheet of 4-inch-thick batting.

Once the bugs are worked out of the process - and if St. Vincent can find markets for the batting - Taylor plans to hire four workers to run the production line. The factory now employs about 10.

Garcia, who works as a link between private business, government and nonprofit agencies to use materials that would otherwise end up in the dump, said she is thrilled with St. Vincent's innovation.

"There's all this incredible resource we're throwing away," Garcia said. "It only takes some creative thinking and connecting the right people and all of a sudden we're taking waste and creating jobs."

CAPTION(S):

Supervisor Art Taylor of St. Vincent de Paul stuffs EcoFiber, a cotton fluff made from denim scraps, into what will become dog beds.