About Our Social Fabric
We are a non-profit textiles recycling initiative based out of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Our present focus is textile collection, recycling, and re-manufacturing. Our long-term goal is to provide employment and social reintegration opportunities for residents of our community.
Our storage locker is full of fabulous fabrics rescued from the landfill and ready to be repurposed. Most are high quality sample fabrics donated directly to us from the film industry, factories, and production facilities. The fabric is still on the bolt and unused. We have a wide variety of wools, cottons, linens, polyester blends, and technical fabrics from places such as Lululemon and Mountain Equipment Co-op.
We recycle fabric by holding monthly fill-a-bag fabric sales out of our storage locker in East Vancouver. Fabric sales are staffed by volunteers. Proceeds go to maintaining the storage locker and keeping it available for donations while we grow our organization and develop related programs.
Why Textiles?
Textiles are one the most common household items and represent a staggering proportion of the solid wastestream: approximately 16kg per person, or a total of 33,600 tonnes in Metro Vancouver in 2006, to give you an idea.
Despite the volume of this waste, few options exist to reuse or recycle salvageable textile items – and next to none for those items that can not be resold. As a result, these textiles end their still-functional lives in the landfill or waste-to-energy incinerator.
Our Social Fabric believes that this unnecessary waste can be not only be avoided, but channeled to create positive change in Vancouver. Aside from the obvious benefits of reducing the waste we are diverting to landfills and waste-to-energy facilities, textile recycling provides local artisans and designers with the ability to create eco friendly clothing lines, and to be induviudual change makers.
Get Involved
We invite Metro Vancouver residents to get involved by attending our monthly fabric sales, donating high-quality fabric to our inventory, or volunteering with this innovative initiative. Witness and take part in the birth and growth of this unique venture, which not only benefits the environment but the economy and all citizens of our community.
Fabric Sales – Check our home page, twitter, and facebook for details on upcoming events. Spread the word through your networks and come on down to purchase a well-priced bag of high-quality fabric for your creative projects. Fabric is also available for purchase in larger quantities by special request.
Donations – We only accept donations of fabric swatches and textiles. Sorry, we do not accept used clothing.
Volunteer – Help staff fabric sales, manage inventory in the storage locker, or fill key positions on the Our Social Fabric Board of Directors.
For more info or to get involved contact us at oursocialfabric@gmail.com
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Follow us on Twitter @oursocialfabric
Posted by Deb on November 27, 2009 at 2:30 am
Do you only accept donations of unused fabrics or would you be interested in accepting fabrics from beautiful pieces of clothing/jackets that could possibly be re-designed?
regards
Deb
Posted by Barb Hestrin on February 25, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Hi There,
I am a hobby sewer and over the years have collected a whole lot of various fabrics that I will be unlikely to use. Do you accept donations of any and all kinds of fabrics? Mine are all clean and unused.
Thanks very much.
Barb
Posted by Victoria Davidson on February 26, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Hi,
I work for the City of Vancouver and we have a bunch of old uniforms that we would like to donate for shredding. Where could we drop these off at? Any contact info would be great as I cant seem to find any on this site.
Cheers,
Victoria
Posted by Dan on March 29, 2010 at 11:34 pm
sales rep for fabric company…have several discontinued fabrics…where do I drop them off
Posted by Morgan on April 1, 2010 at 11:01 pm
I can’t seem to find any information on exactly how you recycle the fabric. Do you accept manufacturing off-cuts of a very small size? Or are you more looking for yardage that can be re-purposed?
Thanks!
Posted by admin on April 6, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Morgan!
Thank you for your interest in our project. Please go to the FAQ page here on our blog for more info on how to recycle with us. thanks!!
Posted by Caroline on June 22, 2010 at 6:21 am
Hi! This is such an interesting project!! I am wondering if you need volunteers to help out? I’m wondering if you need any long term volunteers, but event by event volunteering would be good too!
Posted by TamAirah Pedersen Campbell on September 7, 2010 at 1:02 am
Hey!
Curious…do you have a Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn or any other social media webpages?
Love what you’re ALL doing!
Thank you,
TamAirah
Two Spirit Stylist
Posted by helen on September 25, 2010 at 8:44 pm
I am not sure if this is the right spot on your site to put this, but, I am so very happy to have found you.
It is so exciting to me to find folks who will take textiles, materials, etc. and DO something with what they receive and help others in the process. It took me a while to find you (I am slow on the computer)
but I have quite a lot of fabrics that I did not what to throw out.
Posted by Gloria on January 4, 2011 at 10:10 pm
Where can I drop donations?
Posted by Kim Bothen on January 21, 2011 at 11:43 pm
I have a large donation waiting for you (about 10 large garbage bags full); fabric pieces, bolt ends, off cuts and donated closthing, suit jackets, shirts, etc…
Maple Leaf Storage is full, do you have an alternative drop off, or are you not accepting donations at the moment?
Kim Bothen
Instructor
Costuming for Stage and Screen
Capilano University
Posted by admin on January 22, 2011 at 6:35 pm
There must have been a mistake at Maple Leaf – the units are not full.. we have 2 4061 and the one across the hall. I will look into it asap! Thanks for the heads up!
Posted by Natalia on February 18, 2011 at 6:10 am
Hi there,
A few questions:
1) I would love to be involved in this awesome organization. I’m wondering how to go about doing that.
2) Are your recycled fabrics for sale?
Posted by Mirical on March 8, 2011 at 5:22 pm
I sent you an email last week but haven’t had a reply. Do you have a phone number or any other contact? Is there any way that we can drop off fabric with logos to you and get something on paper that says you will destroy/alter the areas logos? So that they are no longer recognizable? Or do we need to shred it ourselves before we drop it off? How exactly are you involved in employing people from the dtes and assisting existing charitable organizations? Are you a registered charity and can we get a tax receipt for our donations? THANK YOU
!
Posted by admin on March 8, 2011 at 5:47 pm
@ Mirical We have stopped receiving clothing and uniforms such as the items it sounds like you have. We are only taking fabrics at this point, fabric that hasn’t been make into anything yet
sorry! We are a registared non profit and are not a charity, therefore tax receipts cannot be given at this time. At this point we hire people from the DTES to do odd jobs, and have plans to expand into a center. We have also aligned ourself with a local sewing operation called Common Thread. I hope that answers your questions for now! 
Posted by Shane on June 1, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Hello, we have a around 60 backpacks/shoulder strap style carrying cases that we are looking to recycle. If you dont need these items any idea where we can take them? They are in varying condition ranging from good, to missing parts ie strap,to have a smoke smell or heavy signs of use.
Posted by megankathryndunn on September 8, 2011 at 4:52 am
Do you still have the packs? I would contact a company called Debrand, http://www.debrand.ca
Posted by Hlupton on October 18, 2011 at 12:15 am
Hello
I’m a person who has quite a number of torn clothes, I was told there was textile recycling, but as of yet I haven’t been able to find any,
Do you accept donations of torn articles of clothing for Shredding and Re manufacturing?
Posted by Emily Smith on October 18, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Hello there. Sadly we do not accept torn clothing at the moment. It is our long term goal to do shredding and remanufacturing, but we have a ways to go yet.
Posted by Charu on November 28, 2011 at 2:29 am
Do you take out of state donations?
Posted by Emily Smith on November 29, 2011 at 7:28 pm
Hi there. We take donations from anyone anywhere, but note that we do not have a mailing address for donations so you must arrange to have someone drop them off in person. Please note that we do not accept clothing of any kind, fabric scraps, or fabric that is smaller than a 6 x 6 inch square (and we can only accept pieces that small if they are factory samples; if this is a household donation it must be at least 0.5 x 0.5 metres). Fabric must also be clean at the time of donation or it will be refused. Please email osfdonations@gmail.com to set up an appointment; we look forward to hearing from you.