Recycling Plastic Bottles Into Clothing With Repreve

We all know that recycling is important and that when we finish our bottle of water or soda that it should go into the recycling bin instead of the trash. But it can be hard to get a real sense of what your recycling efforts are accomplishing. After all, what difference could it really make?

Well, for an answer, all you have to do is look at Repreve fabric.

Repreve is a company that turns recycled plastic bottles into polyester fiber clothing. The way this works, according to the company site, is that because plastic bottles with a #1 on them are made from the same kind of plastic as polyester (PET plastic), then the company can take the flakes made from grinding up the recycled plastic bottles, and turn them into fiber. These fibers are then used to make all kinds of different clothing, from athletic shorts to fleece jackets.

But how many plastic bottles does it take to actually make something new and usable? Well, it takes the equivalent of roughly 6 plastic water bottles to make a tee-shirt. Or, if you want to aim bigger, it takes roughly 50 plastic water bottles to make a fleece jacket.

Now, ask yourself how many plastic bottles you go through on a weekly basis. How many weeks will it take before the amount of plastic you recycled could make a shirt? Thinking about it in those terms might make recycling seem a little more immediate.