Shoddy: From Devil's Dust to the Renaissance of Rags

The history of modern-day old clothes recycling begins with a thing called shoddy. Starting in the early 1800s, shoddy was the name given to a new material made from reclaimed wool, and to one of the earliest forms of industrial recycling. Old rags and leftover fabric clippings were ground to bits by a machine known as “the devil” and then re-used. Usually undisclosed, shoddy-also known as reworked wool-became suit jackets, army blankets, mattress stuffing, and much more. Shoddy is the afte...