With a helping hand from run specialty retailers, Smartwool continues giving old socks a second life with its five-year-old Second Cut program.

The Denver-based brand known for its high-performance Merino products collects socks of any brand, color, size and material through various avenues, including drop-off sites at running shops during an annual Take Back Event in April, before The Material Return – a custom circularity firm headquartered in Morganton, NC – deconstructs the socks and helps transform the textiles into new goods.

“Second Cut addresses a waste problem directly tied to one of our core product categories and long-term circularity goals,” Smartwool director of sustainability and social impact Alicia Chin says. “It provides us, our retail partners and customers with a practical way to keep materials in use longer, reduce landfill waste and move toward a more circular system.”

Sustainability in Action

Though many textiles can be reused or recycled, an estimated 85 percent of used clothing nevertheless ends up in landfills or waste combustion facilities, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. And socks – a flagship product in the Smartwool universe – sit among the most frequently discarded, landfill-bound apparel items.

“As a brand, we knew we were part of the problem and therefore needed to be part of the solution,” Chin says.

Smartwool launched Second Cut in 2021 to keep worn-out socks out of landfills and further push Smartwool toward a more circular business model honoring the brand’s environmental ethos. The innovative program also gave many run shops an opportunity to contribute to a sustainable initiative with one of their key vendors.

Participating retailers serve as in-person drop-off points during the annual April Take Back Event, placing branded collection boxes in their showrooms to make Second Cut a more visible, on-the-ground circularity effort. Involvement with Second Cut helps retailers boost their own sustainability programming and facilitate a meaningful customer-engagement moment built around a theme important to many consumers. 

Smartwool currently works with more than 700 retail doors across North America to collect old socks, including run specialty stores like Gazelle Sports. The Michigan-based chain began participating in Second Cut in 2021, the program’s debut year. 

“We were at a time where leaning into our values from a decision-making perspective was more important than ever, and it seemed like an easy yes,” Gazelle co-owner and chief marketing officer Cara Cross says of the company’s involvement with Second Cut. 

All seven Gazelle locations are participating in the program again this April. Throughout the month, the company is developing content for in-store and digital channels around the themes of zero waste products and sustainability-minded activations like Second Cut. 

“The one-month activation creates urgency during a month where the community is paying attention to sustainability efforts,” Cross says. 

‘Create a Movement’

With Second Cut, Smartwool creatively transforms waste into opportunities. 

Materials from the brand’s old Merino socks become circular yarn used to produce Second Cut-designated gear in the Smartwool catalog. Initially limited to socks, Smartwool’s Second Cut product lineup now includes items such as the Second Cut Fleece. Chin says that single product alone has saved more than 350,000 pounds of Smartwool materials from falling into landfills.

However, non-Smartwool materials collected through the Second Cut program do not go to waste, either. Those materials become new goods as well, including insulation-filled products.

To date, Second Cut has collected more than two million socks and kept more than 175,000 pounds of material out of landfills. 

“We hope to create a movement to extend the lifetime of our products and materials,” Chin says.

However, Chin insists Second Cut isn’t solely about recycling. It contributes to Smartwool’s circularity platform, which also includes an apparel resale program through ThredUp, and also supports the company’s broader move to a more circular business model. By 2030, in fact, the brand aims to use 100 percent regenerative, recycled or responsibly sourced renewable materials.

Smartwool’s mission resonates with environmentally conscious retailers such as Gazelle, whose commitment to sustainability also includes recycling shoes, producing zero waste events like She Runs Grand Rapids and utilizing recycled materials for its shopping bags. With Second Cut, Gazelle adds another environmental initiative to the mix.

“[Participating in the Second Cut program] gives us an opportunity to tell a sustainability story through a program partnership with a vendor that has real action tied to it,” Cross says. “Our communities want to feel like they can do something, and this allows us the opportunity to engage with them in the doing.”