FABSCRAP promotes recycling in textile industry

When Camille Tagle was starting out in the fashion industry, she found work designing evening wear. She enjoyed the job. Nonetheless, she says that the excessive consumption she was supporting eventually pushed her to look for ways to promote environmental sustainability and reduce waste.

“Luxury evening wear is meant for one-time use,” she told The Sunset Post.

Her quest led her to Jessica Schreiber, then working at the New York City Department of Sanitation. Schreiber founded FABSCRAP in 2016, and Tagle joined as co-founder in 2017. The Sunset Park-based nonprofit’s mission is to reduce the amount of commercial textile waste that ends up in landfills. Since FABSCRAP’s start, more than 2.2 million pounds of fabric have been diverted, some of it redistributed to crafters, quilters, schools and textile artists, and some of it turned into shoddy, a shredded substance used to make carpet padding, mattress stuffing, car-door lining, seat cushions, insulation and filling for stuffed animals and dolls.

FABSCRAP is a large operation, earning more than $1.2 million in 2025. According to its 2025 annual report, this came from a mix of fabric sales, special events, grants and service fees from approximately 500 manufacturers, theaters and businesses that partner with the group to bring textile scraps, samples and other unused materials to Brooklyn to be sorted for reuse or shredding.

Much of that work is carried out by unpaid volunteers, who help sort, deconstruct and prepare materials for reuse or recycling.

Operations consultant Julie Mastrarrigo had a long history in the fashion industry before she began volunteering at FABSCRAP in 2018 and later joined the staff. “We rely on a diverse group of multigenerational, multiethnic volunteers,” she explains. “One of their main jobs is to work on headers, removing staples and paper from fabric samples that are sent by textile mills to manufacturers.”

In return for three hours of labor, each person can take five pounds of fabric and/or zippers, buckles and buttons home.

“We’re often given bolts of fabric or materials that a design company no longer has use for,” Mastrarrigo says. “At FABSCRAP, we believe everything can be reused. It is simply up to our imagination to turn it into something beautiful, meaningful and enduring. Reuse is also a reminder of the many small ways that each person can make a difference.”

That difference has enormous consequences. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the fashion and textiles sector is responsible for between 2% and 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions and uses approximately 215 trillion liters of water per year. Moreover, chemical runoff from dyes can pollute water sources and contaminate soil. In addition, synthetic, nonbiodegradable fabrics such as nylon and polyester can enter oceans and harm marine ecosystems and aquatic life.

Then there are landfills, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates received 11.3 million tons of textile waste in 2018.

“Waste is constantly happening,” FABSCRAP co-founder Tagle tells The Sunset Post. As she speaks, she points to a mountain of black plastic garbage bags stuffed with throwaway fabric. “As soon as one collection of materials is sorted and processed, a new batch of material arrives,” she says. “It’s a never-ending reminder of how much post-industrial waste is being created.”

Education, she continues, is key to raising awareness—and changing consumer behavior—which is why FABSCRAP staff are committed to speaking to as many student groups, community organizations, aspiring designers and industry employees as possible.

“As a designer, I saw how much fabric was thrown away because there was no service available for it to be reused,” Tagle says. That’s where FABSCRAP comes in. “We want to emphasize the doers, the people who physically show up and are doing the work of promoting less consumption and more environmental sustainability,” she says. “People, both in and outside of the fashion world, are generally receptive to the need for industry change.”

Mastrarrigo agrees. “Young people, in particular, are pushing this movement forward,” she says. “This is why I see our work as hopeful.”

What’s more, over 11,300 people have volunteered with FABSCRAP since 2016, a testament to this idea.

“There are people behind every initiative at FABSCRAP,” Tagle says. “Everything in the storeroom was carried in by a person. Volunteers sort the fabrics and goods, repurpose them and are part of the solution. It takes creativity to work with fabric. It takes time. But what we’ve done as a staff of fifteen, many of us part-time, is amazing. It’s encouraging. We are literally doing the physical work of keeping commercial textile waste out of landfills.”

FABSCRAP will be celebrating its 10th anniversary during Climate Week, September 20–27. For the exact date and location of the celebration, visit fabscrap.org.