Wouldn’t it be great if plastic was biodegradable? It is so versatile, lightweight and is used in almost all aspects of daily life. Since it’s not biodegradable, recycling plastic into fabric is one approach to repurpose this flexible material.
We have researched the pros and cons of recycled fabric made from plastic bottles, and below are the things we discovered:
Pros
- Big design and colour variety
- Durable
- Light weight
- Plastic bottles are shred to pieces and molten to spin the
yarn => requires little energy, hardly any water. As opposed to e.g. cotton, which requires intense watering and fertilizers - 1kg of plastic yarn = 8 plastic bottles, that do not find its way to the sea or landfill
Cons
- Once natural and synthetic fibres have been mixed, they cannot be recycled again, unless made from 100% PET
- Over time, does not hold shape as well as wool
- Synthetic fibres are not biodegradable
- With every washing cycle micro fibres can potentially be released and find its way to rivers and seas