From the beginning, Recover apparel and accessories have always been made of 100% recycled materials. Rooted in a strong drive to upcycle materials that would otherwise end up in landfills or as litter in our waters and natural landscapes, Recover’s mission is to create the best, most environmentally friendly and socially responsible products possible, and to educate and inspire those around us to live and work for a sustainable tomorrow. 

We have always taken a holistic approach to realizing this mission- there’s a lot going on out there- and there’s also a lot going on at Recover to innovate and constantly improve our products no matter how good they are. 

We have always consciously made decisions to manufacture relatively close to home in order to reduce carbon footprint, provide local jobs and community building, and create security in our supply chain by working with material and manufacturing partners in the U.S., our fair-wage work co-op partner facility in Haiti, and our biomass powered partner facility in Guatemala. 

We have long been working to develop a 100% local supply chain entirely within the U.S.A. and finally it’s here: Recover Classic Tees - from material sourcing to cut and sew - are made within a 250 mile radius of our headquarters in Charlotte, NC. 

“We’re always thinking not only about the materials in Recover products, but also about where they’re made, reducing carbon footprint, investing in infrastructure in small towns in the U.S., providing opportunities in those communities, and local workforce development,” describes Recover President Bill Johnston. Bill continues, “Working towards Recover Made in USA the past couple of years also gives Recover the ability to now make products faster and have an even more nimble supply chain.  Because everything is localized, we can continue to have the security of serving our customers quickly and producing high-quality products, even in uncertain times.”

This 250 mile radius Recover Tee supply chain now not only greatly minimizes the carbon footprint of Recover Tees, it also makes them one of a kind being made of 100% recycled materials and ALSO 100% made in the USA. 

For some perspective on the innumerable benefits of Recover Classic Tees being 100% Made in the USA, here is one report’s account of a conventional tees journey “from field to rack” for comparison with Recover. Note that it’s challenging to trace any one t-shirt’s journey but it is common for materials to be made/ grown, shipped halfway around the world (largely to Asia) for manufacturing and then shipped all over the globe for sales, and then shipped to Africa and Asia for disposal. 

This KQED report describes an example journey of your average conventional fast fashion tee shirt… In tracing the journey of an average conventional fast fashion t-shirt “From Field to Rack”, they show that for cotton produced in Texas (the U.S. is the world’s second largest cotton producer after China and India), that’s then shipped to China (about 7,000 miles) for milling, then to Bangladesh for sewing (about 1,800 miles), then to a store rack in California (7,700 miles), it takes a total of approximately 16,500 miles of travel and related transportation carbon footprint just for one shirt to make it from materials to a store. 

Check out their animation of the journey in the report. 

It is worth noting that while unfortunately some companies have falsely taken advantage of the Made in USA label, Recover is completely transparent about our Made in USA process, and further, it is also something that has always been a source of connection and home-pride since long before the start of Recover. Bill grew up in Statesville, North Carolina, and connecting with North Carolina’s rich textile history, the opportunity to work with and give back to local communities is extremely valuable, fun, and rewarding.