Will Clothing Made From Plastic Bottles Revolutionize Fashion?

Plastic bottles are legion. Whether we’re using them to carry around our water or buying them out of a vending machine for a quick rush of caffeine, we go through millions of tons of these bottles every year. To make matters worse, only a small portion of these bottles are recycled around the world (the United States recycles less than 30 percent of them, for instance).

So what do we do with all of these bottles? Well, one unique recycling solution has been to turn them into clothing.

Turn Them Into What Now?

Plastic water and soda bottles, as we all know, are completely recyclable. While they can’t be turned back into food-grade plastic, they can be used for hundreds of other applications; including clothing! From the North Carolina-based Dirtball, who’s investing in making jeans from water bottles to Teeki yoga pants made in Los Angeles more and more companies are investing in this unique method of recycling.

While the products range from tee shirts and socks to yoga pants, sweaters, and jeans the process by which they’re made is pretty similar across the board. Plastic bottles are washed, stripped of caps and labels, and then they’re ground into flakes or pellets. Once they’ve been reduced to stock, the plastic is pulled and woven into a fiber. The fibers are dyed, and woven into new fabric that’s soft, comfortable, and best off all still completely recyclable.

Will It Revolutionize Fashion?

While these recycling innovations are certainly impressive, there’s no telling the long-term effects they’ll have on fashion. Will recycled plastic outsell natural fibers? Will the ability to recycle clothes in a literal way act as a selling point in the future? Who can say… but for the time being these recycled threads are flying off the shelves in a big, big way!