SALT LAKE CITY -- Macon Rudick recycles. But he doesn't do it because he's an environmentalist. He does it because he's a businessman.

"I'd like to tell you I'm a tree hugger, but I'm not," said Rudick, the president of SanSegal Sportswear in Sandy, Utah, which makes Green Brand cotton clothing. "There's basically a lot of demand for recycled garments, and cotton in particular."

The Outdoor Retailer convention, held Jan. 28-31 at the Salt Palace Convention Center here, has long stood out for its environmentally conscious bent -- a rarity among trade shows. The show featured a panel discussion of cause-related marketing and a keynote speech by Ray Anderson, who switched his carpet company over to using recycled materials and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes and found it saved him money.

Manufacturers of clothing and gear for outdoor enthusiasts realize that without an outdoor ecosystem, there would be no place to use their gear. Increasingly, their customers are realizing the same thing.

A few years ago, the National Park Service, one of SanSegal's biggest clothing accounts, started getting requests from park visitors for more gift-shop items made from recycled materials. But the company couldn't find anyone who could supply T-shirts and fleece made from recycled material.

So it started from scratch, finding sources of discarded material and collecting it for use in new clothes -- pleasing customers who wanted something comfortable and carefree but natural at the same time. Now, SanSegal makes a range of casual cotton T-shirts, hats and pants.

"Recycled pop bottles have been around for 20 years, but recycled cotton has only been around for about three years," Rudick said.

Recycled fabric usually costs more than new, though the price of the fabric itself is only part of the cost of a garment, and conservation-conscious buyers are sometimes willing to pay a little more for recycled products. But with rising costs of raw materials, especially oil for manmade fibers, recycling is becoming more cost-effective.

Rudick and other manufacturers say the factor contributing most to recycled clothing's viability is the quality of fabric made from previously used materials.

"It's kind of a perfect storm of all of those companies that want to do the right thing and always have -- and it's also good business. They realize the quality of the business depends on the future of the outdoors," said Nate Simmons, spokesman for Polartec, which makes clothing for several brands. It has long made fleece out of recycled plastics, but now new technology makes quality better as customers demand more sustainable manufacturing.

"There's enough momentum and interest and ability to do it. ... We've been doing it for years, but there's a lot more interest now from many more companies than ever before," Simmons said.

"Recycled" means different things to different companies.

For Polartec, it means making polyester out of plastic already used for something else. For SanSegal, the term means pre-consumer waste, material left over on the cutting room floor.

Rudick has overheard customers in stores looking at clothing tags. "They often don't know what they're looking at. They think it's (made of) garbage," he said.

SanSegal buys the fabric from a few companies that collect material from points around the world, then matches them by color, blends the fibers together and comes up with a heathery yarn using closely guarded methods. SanSegal buys the yarn, finishes the fabric, designs the clothing and puts the finishing touches on the garments in Sandy.

Some of Patagonia's clothing is garbage -- literally.

"We were the first manufacturer to create clothing made of postconsumer waste," said company representative Dave Pinegar. Patagonia's "Common Threads" program encourages customers to "drop your drawers" and bring worn-out base layers of Capilene, Patagonia's trademark polyester fabric, to Patagonia outlets. They are collected, compacted and shipped to Patagonia factories, where they are broken down into plastic chips and re-spun into new synthetic yarn.

That process wasn't possible until recently, with the introduction of new manufacturing technology that allows the companies to make recycled garments that are the same quality as the original. The new clothing made from discarded Capilene will hit store shelves this fall.

The company also switched to all organic cotton and is using more hemp, which is easy to grow and requires less water than other fibers. But Pinegar acknowledges there are always places to improve. "We're by no means benign to the environment."

Jim Heiden, owner of Boulder, Colo.-based sock company Teko, agrees that some companies -- including Patagonia, Nike and Timberland -- are making strides toward reducing their impact on the environment. But most outdoor clothing is still made in China or other countries where oversight is poor and attention to the environment minimal. "Are we better than Wal-Mart? No. We just charge more," he said.

He does see a little progress. People stopping by his Outdoor Retailer booth recognize his brand more and are seeking out his socks made of recycled polyesters and wool grown on "biodiverse" ranches.

But "people are still doing one or two products and calling themselves sustainable. ... They at least talk about it. But they talk about a lot of things," he said, pointing to the fact that most clothing for the outdoors is still "loaded with fluorocarbons."

His operation uses recycled materials at all stages; even his carpet and office supplies are recycled. His company is a reflection of the same feelings that make him angry when outdoors enthusiasts hike off trails and destroy plants. "Every living thing is important and has a reason, and we don't have enough of it now," he said.