Less than one year after opening their new HQ in Surrey, reverse logistics and textile recycling provider Debrand has opened their first U.S. facility in Columbus, Ohio.
Columbus is home to the third largest concentration of fashion designers in the United States.
This strategic location enhances the company’s capacity to meet the increasing demand for scalable advanced textile sortation services, expanding its innovative circular textile ecosystem.
Debrand’s 32,000-square-foot facility has been designed to support brands in integrating sustainability and circularity models that align with impending regulatory compliance using future-proof sortation technology and cutting-edge machinery.
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Founded in 2008 by Amelia Eleiter and Wes Baker, Debrand serves top apparel brands like Everlane, lululemon, Aritzia, and Canada Goose.
“The fashion industry is well beyond its tipping point with textile waste. The sheer volume of garments produced each year is becoming insurmountable, and there simply aren’t enough regional solutions to address this issue at the scale required in North America,” said Eleiter, CEO and Co-founder at Debrand.
“By expanding our footprint, we’re making the investments necessary to move the industry towards a more responsible future. Not only will this help us address our current challenges with pre- and post-consumer waste, but we’re also future proofing so that once regulations pass and our clients are faced with new operational realities, we’re ready to support them in lockstep to create the most impactful systems of sustainability and circularity possible.”
With the emergence of the proposed Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) bills in major U.S. markets that assigns producers responsibility for the end-of-life of products, the urgency for infrastructure investment to support the circular economy for textile waste has never been greater.
The facility strives to mirror the success of the company’s facility in Canada, housing a fusion of automated textile sortation technology and equipment. This integration empowers scalable textile sortation, increasing capacity and capabilities to meet the growing demands of Debrand’s next-life logistics services and solutions.
“We are thrilled that Debrand is opening a new facility in our hometown,” said Meghan McLane, Director, Product Sustainability at Victoria’s Secret.
“As our partner, Debrand has been instrumental in advancing our end-of-life garment program. This facility is another step in building the infrastructure needed in North America to enable brands to move towards more circular models.”
In 2022, Debrand received a strategic investment from WM, North America’s largest environmental solutions provider. It was the first investment made by WM in textile recycling.
The new U.S. facility aligns the company with WM and its operations across North America.
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