Top > Boardroom ECO Apparel Blog > July 13 2007 How Can Apparel be Made from Recycled Plastics?
posted on 4:42 PM, March 16, 2009
How can synthetic fleece and other materials be made from pop bottles?
Fleece is made of polyester, a petroleum-based synthetic that can be spun into fibers or moulded into plastic. Recycled polyester is derived from a variety of post-consumer and post-industrial sources, such as consumer recycled pop bottles.
To make recycled polyester, the bottles are separated by color, sterilized and then crushed, chopped and melted.
The melted plastic is extruded through a shower-head type device, producing fibrous polyester strands. Those strands are woven into Boardroom ECO Apparel's Recycled Polyester Eco-Fabrics.
Because polyester microfleece is petroleum based, making clothing from recycled polyester cuts down on the consumption of raw materials and fossil fuels.In fact, the apparel industry estimates that it has the capacity to save about 500,000 barrels of oil a year by recycling almost three billion plastic bottles. For every pound of recycled polyester yarn, 61,000 BTU’s are conserved, equivalent to 0.5 Gallons of gasoline.
