How do you like your jeans? Skinny…Straight-leg…Loose Fit? The 2012 Ford Focus likes it’s jeans in a slightly different form—as recycled content for the interior. It may seem strange to take used jeans and use them in the interior of a new car, but Ford has some compelling reasons. As a matter of fact, it is part of the companies overall green strategy.
The 2012 Ford Focus, a car that will roll out to American and European showrooms early next year, uses recycled content for areas such as carpet backing and sound-absorption materials that help keep the interior noise levels down. Using material from used jeans, Ford is able to recycle the cotton material and reuse it in the aforementioned places. “Ford is continually looking for greener alternatives,” said Carrie Majeske, product sustainability manager. “One of our key goals is to use more recycled or renewable materials without compromising performance or durability. Recycled content is a way to divert waste from landfills and reduce the impact of mining virgin material.”
As mentioned earlier, this procedure fits right in with Ford’s “reduce, reuse and recycle” commitment—one that is part of a wider global sustainability strategy to reduce its environmental footprint. Recycled cotton is the only thing Ford uses, for the last several years Ford has be using more of non-metal recycled and bio-based materials. Those materials include soy foam seat cushions, recycled resins for underbody systems, recycled yarns on seat covers and natural-fiber plastic for interior components.
Bottom line—we have to agree with Majeske, “The good news is these jeans didn’t end up in a landfill, nor did we use the water, fertilizer and land to grow virgin cotton.” However, we are still curious what name brand jeans the 2012 Ford Focus prefers.
[Source: Ford]
