CONTAINER TO CLOTHING

ChinmayaIAS Academy - Current Affairs February 10, 2023 GS3 Leave a comment 211 Views

At a time when clean and conscious living is the mantra, the fashion industry is going green with PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) bottles now being recycled into comfortable, everyday wear.
This way, the industry says, it is not just reducing the amount of plastics in the environment, but the process utilises less water, and also reduces carbon emissions.
While sustainable fashion as a concept has been around for a long time now, the increased focus on climate change and Environment-Social-Governance (ESG) goals of companies has seen consumers, designers and brands adopt such practices in recent years.
We saw PM Narendra Modi turn heads on Wednesday for his blue ‘sadri’ jacket made out of recycled plastic bottles.
Ecoline Clothing, a sustainable clothing brand out of Karur, Tamil Nadu, was the company that made the fabric that went into the jacket by recycling up to 28 PET bottles.
The end-to end manufacturing company recycles and upcycles PET bottles to create value-added products like garments.
The production process is in line with Global Recycle Standard (GRS), an international standard with requirements for third-party certification of recycled content.
The company collects PET bottles in the form of bales, which are sorted to remove PET alone.
This is then crushed to make flakes which are extruded into fibre. The fibre is spun into yarn, which is then converted to fabric.
The dyeing technology also does not use water thus conserving the scarce resource.
Ecoline consumes around 6 PET Bottles to make a T-shirt that costs roughly 600.
UniRec, another sustainable garments company that tailors shirts, suits, trousers, and polo’s from fabrics procured from recycled PET bottles, is noticing trade inquiries picking up with the endorsement of the PM.
“The carbon emissions are almost 40% lower in making garments from recycled polyester. There continues to be high demand for polyester garments; we can do our bit by not using new plastic but recycling existing resources.”
Comfortable everyday footwear such as sneakers and flip-on using natural and sustainable materials such as recycled PET bottles, Merino Wool and 100% Natural cotton are also increasingly used.