By Jennifer Dorsett
Field Editor
Two West Texas FFA chapters and one 4-H club are taking home the green for recycling some blue—blue jeans, that is.
Meadow FFA, Olton FFA and Hutchinson County 4-H kept more than 2,500 denim clothing articles from area landfills through the Blue Jeans Go Green denim drive, sponsored by PhytoGen, the U.S. cottonseed brand of Corteva Agriscience.
In first place, Meadow FFA collected 1,563 pairs of jeans for the top prize of $2,000. Olton FFA, who won the contest last year, came in second this time and received $1,000 for their efforts. Hutchinson County 4-H received $500 for third place.
While the COVID-19 pandemic put an initial halt on the contest, the shutdown actually helped them collect more denim, according to Meadow FFA Booster Club member and Denim Drive Coordinator Monica Caswell.
“The cut-off date was initially in April, and we were going to take all the donations to Lubbock and drop them off at the Texas Cotton Ginners Association meeting and trade show. Then, the world shut down. But since that got cancelled, we had a couple of more months to collect the denim,” Caswell said. “People were at home and cleaning out their closets, and we actually collected quite a bit more over that time. We ended up having to box it up and get shipping labels and set up a time with UPS to ship them to Arizona, but it was worth the effort.”
Caswell, whose family farms cotton in Terry County, said she follows PhytoGen on Facebook, where she saw a post about the annual contest. She asked their agricultural science teacher if he would help and encourage the students to participate if she coordinated the project.
Then, it was just a matter of community involvement, and Terry County residents rose to the occasion.
“Our community really helped. We put up collection boxes at the Meadow Co-op Gin, Needmore Gin, Terry County Veterinary Hospital and First Baptist Church of Meadow. So, there were lots of places for people to drop off their donations,” she said. “Farmers and customers at the vet saw the boxes and cleaned out their closets. No one really knows what to do with old denim that’s ripped or just too worn out to be reused. They don’t want to throw them away, but there didn’t used to be anything else to do with them. This program keeps them out of the landfill and turns old jeans into a useful product.”
In addition to Terry County, Caswell reached out to a program in Lubbock called Caleb’s Closet. The non-profit organization collects donations of gently-used clothing and household items to help families of foster children, who often are placed into foster care with little or no personal belongings.
“It was more than just our little town of Meadow that sent denim. It was people in Lubbock and Brownfield and other areas that contributed. I contacted Caleb’s Closet in Lubbock to see if they ever got any ripped denim or jeans that they couldn’t use. So, as they got donations they couldn’t use, they passed them our way,” Caswell said. “They helped a lot. I think they donated something like 300 pairs of jeans that were too worn out or ripped or whatever. We plan to give back to that organization with some of the winnings from the PhytoGen contest.”
In 2019, PhytoGen became the first cottonseed company to collaborate with the Blue Jeans Go Green program, a Cotton, Inc. initiative that upcycles denim garments into premium housing insulation and keeps denim out of landfills, by hosting the first nationwide denim collection drive program.
The first Blue Jeans Go Green demin drive was a smash, with more than 7,412 items collected last year through drives at cotton industry events and company locations across the U.S. Local FFA and 4-H chapters participated by collecting denim in their communities.
The collaboration between PhytoGen and the Blue Jeans Go Green initiative, combined with local FFA and 4-H chapter involvement is a recipe for success, according to Derek Racca, PhytoGen brand manager.
“Thanks to the participation of local FFA and 4-H chapters, old denim will be recycled and put to good use as home insulation, with a portion being distributed to charitable organizations,” Racca said. “It’s rewarding for PhytoGen cottonseed to be involved with an initiative that supports cotton-growing communities and promotes cotton’s sustainability.”