Evrlane is a clothing company committed to eradicating plastics from its products and processes. This also means exploring alternatives to polybags in the supply chain.

Plastic is ubiquitous in today's society. A great amount of plastic is specifically flowing into the packaging industry. However, economic and technical limitations cause most plastic packaging to have a linear and unsustainable life, often characterized by a very short use phase. The fashion industry is a major buyer of the 5 trillion bags produced every year—only 1% of which are recycled. Everlane alone requires thousands of them each month, of varying shapes and sizes.

In November 2018, Everlane CEO publicly committed to eradicating all virgin plastic from the company’s supply chain, stores, and offices by 2021. The first idea was to bundle several garments together in a bag, to reduce overall plastic use. As an experiment, she asked Everlane’s Los Angeles–based factory to put 50 T-shirts in a master poly bag. But once that bag reached the company’s warehouse in Pennsylvania, workers struggled to keep the shirts clean as they unpacked, shelved, and then shipped them out to customers. Everlane then explored reusable bags, but they need to be shipped back to the factory at the end of the process, which is neither convenient nor environmentally sound. It also nixed the idea of bags made of biodegradable plastic or corn when she discovered that they would need to be sprayed with a special chemical in order to decompose: Most waste-management systems are not equipped to do this. Eventually, after a months-long search, Everlane partnered with a manufacturer in China that has the capacity to make 100% recycled plastic bags. The factory requires 45 days to produce them, however, whereas traditional poly bags take about 5 days, which means Everlane needs to calculate demand much further in advance.