Paper Company, Levi Strauss Link Resources To Recycle Denim

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Stefan Watson is getting things done by the seat of his pants - literally.

Watson has teamed his specialty paper company with Levi Strauss & Co. in a unique partnership to recycle denim scrap that has substantially expanded his small business while helping the big clothing maker cut costs.

Before joining forces with Watson Paper Co., Levi Strauss was discarding more than 25 million pounds of denim scrap each year from its 32 U.S. plants.

Today, a lot of the leftover denim is turned into paper products, including the stationery and letterhead used at Levi Strauss headquarters in San Francisco.

The paper comes in a soft blue tint resembling faded blue jeans, and also in darker blue, black and bleached white.

The clothing company also distributes shopping bags made from recycled denim to Levi's factory outlet stores and retailers.

The arrangement is a practical solution to what was once a troublesome byproduct of the manufacturing process.

"There was no way to get rid of their unused materials except to dump them into landfills," Watson says. "We simply created a market for them."

In 1990, Watson - who runs the paper company with his wife, Eileen Devereux - was searching for cotton raw materials. Most of his customers were artists who wanted a finer grade of paper than could be made from wood.

After learning that the Levi Strauss plant in Albuquerque was throwing out a huge amount of scrap, Watson asked company officials if he could use some of the material to experiment with denim recycling.

"It was a very small company in New Mexico presenting this idea to a very big corporation," Watson says.

Steven Meyette, a senior buyer in Levi Strauss' purchasing division in San Francisco, pitched the partnership to his bosses through the company's employee empowerment program and got approval.

Since bringing Watson Paper on board, Levi Strauss has saved about 12 percent on the costs of office products and waste dumping, according to Meyette.

Meyette says the venture also has yielded a payoff in positive publicity, helping to portray Levi Strauss as an environmentally conscious manufacturer.

"From the environmental aspect, we've gotten a lot of good publicity that we can't put a dollar value on," he says. "As someone high up in our company said, `This is the best idea to come along since blue jeans.' "

Watson Paper, which has grown from two employees to 27 in the past two years, processes scrap from three Levi plants in the Southwest, and others are expected to be added soon.

Plans are under way to develop pencils - another traditional wood product.