The sustainability conversation around textile waste often centers on heaps of consumers’ discarded clothing. But within the supply chain, there are billions of dollars’ worth of unused fabrics, sitting in mills, warehouses and factories, which are typically destined for landfills or incinerators.
New York-based startup Queen of Raw is saving these textiles for new uses through a marketplace that allows sellers and buyers to more easily move materials ranging from Italian wool and leather to cottons and performance fabrics. The increasingly global marketplace allows shoppers to search for materials nearby to their production facilities when possible, cutting back on the environmental impact of shipping textiles with geolocated matchmaking.
