How are Plastic Bottles Recycled into Clothing?

When you first hear that fabric can be made from recycled plastic bottles, it’s a pretty wild concept to wrap your head around. Understandably your first thoughts are wondering if the fabric is hot, crunchy and anything but breathable. TL;DR it’s not, it’s soft, breathable and sustainable. Now before we jump into why recycling plastic bottles is a good thing and how on earth it actually happens, we’ll present another predominantly unknown fact; the majority of your clothing is made from oil.

For more information, please visit plastic bottle flakes separator.

To try and sum up the different fabric types briefly, there’s natural and synthetic fibres. Natural fibres include cotton, silk, linen, wool, hemp and bamboo, they’re grown (either by plants or animals) and they’re biodegradable, with a lighter impact. Then there’s synthetic fibres, these are man made fibres, including polyester, nylon, acrylic and spandex, these are made from non natural materials, historically from oil.

So why would we ever use synthetics if we can just use natural fibres? Great question. It’s a matter of performance. Synthetic fibres are incredible for unique properties, such as being sweat wicking, waterproof or stretchy (without losing shape). To put it simply, we believe synthetic fibres should only be used when natural fibres cannot be used, and by this interpretation we mean for sports and performance. Organic cotton is great for a tee or a jumper for everyday use, but a silk raincoat doesn’t really stand a chance. 

By recycling bottles, not only are we reducing waste from landfill, and finding a purpose for all this post consumer single use waste we have, we’re also reducing our dependence on oil within the fashion industry, as, it is obviously, far from sustainable. 

So how does the magic happen?

1. Plastic bottles are collected for recycling 

2. Caps are removed and bottles are sorted by colour 

3. The bottles are cleaned and sterilised to remove any nasties

4. The plastic is dried and shredded into small flakes

5. Flakes are melted and extruded (squeezed) into yarn

6. The yarn is spun into thread

7. The thread is woven into fabric rolls

   Featured content:
   Plastic Washing Line: Briefing - Plastic Recycling Machine

   The company is the world’s best pet recycling machine factory supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.

8. Fabric is cut and sewn to create new clothes

Recycled fabric feels just like regular fabric, it’s soft, silky, breathable and comfortable. It’s a durable, high performance fabric that uses up to 59% less energy in production, compared to creating conventional polyester (from oil). 

Since the day we launched in 2018, we’ve always been creating and using sustainable fabrics, with recycled polyester for our raincoats, starting with 48% recycled and for 2020 we’ve managed to increase that to 100% recycled, and for our activewear it’s 75% recycled (mixed with elastane for stretch). There’s no such thing as a perfect fabric, and one day we’d love to be able to reduce our impact even more, but are pretty happy with our progress so far, recycling over 50,000 bottles into fabric and reducing our dependence on oil.

Check out our

recycled range here

, proving there’s no need to compromise on style or sustainability.

By Allison Tau

If you look at the tag on a piece of clothing, you might see “recycled polyester” listed as one of the materials. Most recycled polyester that we use comes from plastic water and soda bottles! Using recycled polyester is better for the earth than using new polyester. Here’s why.

To make new polyester, you need to start with coal, petroleum, air, and water. These materials have to go through a chemical reaction called polymerization, at extremely high heat. This means that making new polyester uses a lot of energy and natural resources, which isn’t ideal. It also adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, which harms the climate.

Using recycled polyester to make new fabric, on the other hand, uses less energy and resources. You use already existing plastic to make the new material, so you don’t need to get coal and petroleum from the earth. 

Plastic water and soda bottles often contain a chemical called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Using PET bottles to make recycled polyester produces 75% fewer greenhouse gas emissions, compared to making new PET.

You can tell whether a piece of consumer plastic is PET by looking for a number “1” stamped inside the universal recycling symbol. The number you see in the symbol stands for the type of plastic used to make the item. Some types of plastic can be recycled in various ways, but other kinds of plastic cannot be recycled at all. 

Here’s how recycled polyester is made. At the recycling facility, water and soda bottles made with PET are separated from the other plastics. Then, the PET plastic bottles pass through a machine that shreds them into flakes. These flakes are melted down and turned into hard pellets. At another factory, the pellets are melted again, and pushed through tiny holes, like water through a showerhead. The long fibers are pulled and stretched, and then twisted together to make a special kind of yarn. Machines knit or weave the yarns together to make polyester fabric. It takes about 9 plastic bottles to make one T-shirt … and about 11 plastic bottles to make a pair of shoes!

Even though recycled polyester is a useful way to keep plastic bottles out of landfills and the ocean, getting enough PET depends on the choices people make. There are more than enough plastic bottles and containers in the world. However, people must place their PET containers in their recycling bins, instead of their trash cans, or worse, leave them outside. 

Even when used PET ends up at a recycling facility, there is a limit to how many times it can be recycled. Once PET becomes recycled polyester, it cannot be easily recycled any further. Even so, scientists are still coming up with new ideas to reuse the waste we have lying around to keep it from polluting our planet. What other kinds of creative materials could we someday use to create fabrics?

Contact us to discuss your requirements of plastic washing recycling machine. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.