Global Recycling Day: Bottled Water Company Makes Uniforms Out Of Used Bottles For Employees

Plastic PET bottles don't have to be worthless after use, and that's something this bottled water company proved. They took used PET bottles and fashioned uniforms out of them for their employees on the occasion of Global Recycling Day.

According to TOI , the fabric made from these bottles is sustainable and about 5,000 of the company's employees are wearing the recycled uniforms across India. The report also suggests that 90 per cent of all PET is used for making yarn, T-shirts, shirts etc. after getting recycled.

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Technology has clearly reached a milestone given that these bottles can be transformed into clothes now.

How does it work?

Bottles are collected and sent to the recycling company which crushes them into flakes. After that, using a conversion machine, the flakes are converted into fibre. These fibres are then dyed into the different shades and mixed with cotton to make shirts and, for trousers, they are combined with viscose. Apparently, it takes around 40 bottles to make a shirt and 45 of them to make a single trouser.

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The fibre is converted into yarn by using the ring frame spinning machine once the mixing process is complete. Eventually, the fibre is converted into fabric once the yarn is ready. The process involves weaving the fibre rapier and air jet looms. Once that is done, the fabric is sent for washing so that it can finally be processed. The fabric then reaches the tailoring unit so that the uniforms can be stitched for the employees.

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This initiative is a great one and teaches us a lot about the importance of recycling. Most of us are ignorant about recycling in spite of knowing its endless benefits and how it can also prevent scarcity of resources on the planet. More organisations should follow in this company's footsteps so that more and more people are encouraged to recycle.

Just a few days ago, a man was in the news for making handbags from 150 million tons of plastic waste from our oceans. The brand who went ahead with this initiative is called Rothy¡¯s and what they do is use the extracted plastic bottles and turn them into weave fabric that they call recycled PET or rPET. So, the same concept that the bottled water company is following but here the end result are handbags.

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If this becomes a common practice, the planet will definitely be grateful.

If you want to get more ideas about recycling, this is an interesting piece on how you could recycle old household products and make great use of them.