One of the best stories to come out of Outdoor Retailer 2016 is Columbia’s new OutDry Eco, an environmentally-friendly outer wear that performs flawlessly. We’ve been using the OutDry Extreme technology for over a year. Unlike traditional breathable fabrics, OutDry Extreme doesn’t use a spray-on waterproofing agent. Instead, the material is inherently waterproof so there is no wetting out and reapplying. In extreme on-the-water tests we stayed dry and cool even in hot, humid, Southern summer thunderstorms.
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For 2017, they’ve added OutDry to shoes, rain pants, bigs, coats, jackets, even a reversable sweatshirt. But I’m most excited about new OutDry Eco.
OutDry Eco takes the same technology but produces it in the most eco-friendly method. First, the fabric does not use any dye, so the jackets are bright white. This saves 13.5 gallons of water for each jacket. Next, they make the jacket out of recycled plastic, saving the equivelant of 21 plastic bottles with each jacket. And, OutDry doesn’t use PFCs, chemicles used in waterproofing that does not decompose and can pollute water, animals and even people. The OutDry Eco will run $199, so it will save some money, too.
