New Kids’ Fashion Brand Aims to Keep Outgrown Clothes Out of Landfills

Around two years ago, during the isolation of the pandemic, Go Wakimoto, like many others, found himself re-evaluating his life priorities. The ex-Nike executive had been in the corporate rat race for ten years and wondered if that was how he wanted to continue the next twenty to thirty years of his life. He concluded that he wanted to figure out how to leave the world a bit better than how he found it.

At the time, his son turned one, and he and his wife were finding themselves neck-deep in clothes, either in the form of hand-me-downs from friends, or new clothes, both of which his son quickly outgrew. 

^{Go Wakimoto with son Jackson. Loop Apparel}

Wakimoto said the clothes he outgrew ended up in buckets to give to friends who might have kids in the future, second-hand stores, and Goodwill. However, the more research he did, the more he realized how many of those clothes usually end up in third-world marketplaces or polluting the environment in landfills. 

“[I thought] why isn’t there a simpler, more sustainable solution for parents where we can give back whatever clothes no longer fit?” he said. Then he thought, “Why don’t I do that?”

He proceeded to found Loop Apparel, a Denver-based sustainable circular kids’ clothing brand. Launched in December 2023 and delivering nationwide, the company currently carries T-shirts in several sizes, made with ethically sourced organic cotton and dyes. Parents can buy one of these shirts, and when their kid outgrows it, return and exchange it for a size up for a cheaper price. 

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What they return will either be cleaned and resold to a new family, also at a discount, or recycled with one of its partners to avoid ending up in the landfill if it’s too damaged or soiled for re-use.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, each year around 85% of all textiles thrown away in the U.S. end up in a landfill or incinerated. Globally, an estimated 92 million tons of textile waste is created each year, with more than 3 billion articles of children’s clothing included in that number.   

As clothing decomposes in landfills, it releases methane into the air, and the toxic chemicals and dyes in the fabric can leach into the soil and contaminate groundwater. Synthetic clothing also sheds microplastics into the environment, and toxic additives like PFAS, both of which have now become ubiquitous. 

When synthetic clothing is incinerated, it also produces toxic emissions and ash that can affect nearby communities. 

Fashion waste is also exported to several developing countries, like the Global South — especially in parts of Africa, particularly Ghana, where it is causing tons of pollution and injustice in communities that are building their houses on mounds of unsanctioned trash, much of it textiles. 

Fashion on the whole is also one of the world’s largest polluting industries, with its production responsible for 10% of total global carbon emissions. 

Wakimoto said that while he didn’t think much about fashion’s impact on the environment while working as a marketing director at Nike, he did learn a lot about supply chains, how to design apparel, and how to find the right manufacturers. 

When he initially came up with the idea, he reached out to a friend in Amsterdam who works at the B Lab, which is a global nonprofit that certifies B Corps, or Benefit Corporations that meet high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. He asked if she knew anybody in the B Corps network who could help make kids’ T-shirts.

One of the contacts he was given was To the Market, a woman-owned platform that connects to ethical supply chains and sustainable sourcing, which has a network of suppliers around the world. They also helped design the T-shirt from the tech side, before providing a supplier in Dhaka, Bangladesh that is WRAP Certified (Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production), meaning that it is made with ethical fair trade labor. The clothing is also certified for being 100% organic cotton.

Using organic cotton was important to Wakimoto not just for kids’ health, but also for environmental health.

While textile production itself is extremely water-intensive, using around 93 billion cubic meters of water annually, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, conventionally farmed cotton is also especially water-intensive. It takes 2700 liters of water to make one cotton shirt, which is enough water for a single person to drink over three years.  

To increase production to fulfill demand, synthetic pesticides and fertilizers are also often used to increase inputs, which damages soil and pollutes the groundwater, while also creating risky conditions for farmers. 

Wakimoto outlines some of these details in the company’s blog alongside the benefits of organic cotton, such as how it produces 46 percent less carbon dioxide, and utilizes 91 percent less water, while safeguarding waterways from pollution. 

He’s also written about microplastics and why choosing circular fashion helps eliminate waste and pollution, allows products longer lifespans, and is less extractive. 

Writing the blog, he said, is important because he felt that in order for people to be interested in the brand, they needed to be made aware of the negative impacts clothing has on the planet, and how Loop can provide a potential affordable solution. 

Though Loop carries only T-shirts right now, Wakimoto hopes to eventually expand into more kids’ essentials like sweatshirts and sweatpants. The expansion of the company, however, will also need to come with more awareness, and Wakimoto said he feels there are still many people lacking knowledge of the impact the fashion industry has on the planet.  

He added, however, that when illuminating these issues he hopes to strike a delicate balance between educating and making sure people don’t feel guilty or overwhelmed — he just hopes to inspire others to be more kind to the planet. 

He also said he doesn’t want to presume to have all the answers. “You know, we’re just trying to do something 1% better every day.”