A New Spin on Trash : SCIENCE FILE / An exploration of issues and trends affecting science, medicine and the environment.
Keeping trash out of landfills has never been more fashionable. The plastic soda bottle left in the recycling bin today could end up on your back tomorrow. As part of the “green” movement, manufacturers of outdoor clothing and equipment are increasingly using environmentally-friendly fibers spun from recycled plastic and other trash.
Ventura-based Patagonia is one such distributor of “eco-wear.” Since 1993 it has manufactured fleece clothing of post-consumer recycled polyester that is virtually indistinguishable from (and costs the same as) its old fleece-wear made of standard polyester.
Turning Bottles into Clothing
To become polyester thread, bottles must first be reduced to their original state--polyethylene terephthalate.
* It takes about 25 reborn 1-liter plastic bottles to make one fleece pullover.
* Other products made from recycled plastic polyester include carpeting and fiberfill for pillows and sleeping bags.
1. Bottles are obtained from recycling centers across the country and sorted by color.
2. After being cleaned, plastic is crushed into flakes by a machine that also takes off caps and labels.
3. Flakes are purified; clear flakes are bleached white, while green stays the same.
4. Dried flakes are melted in huge vats and forced through a shower head-like nozzle called a spinneret, creating hair-thin fibers.
5. The fiber is placed in hot water to soften before drawing it into fibers four times finer.
6. Fibers are crimped, dried and cut into shorter pieces, then compressed and baled, ready to be shipped to a textile mill to be died and weaved into a garment.
About 9 billion plastic bottles are produced annually in the U.S., about two-thirds of which end up in landfills or incinerators. Most of the rest go to Wellman Inc. a recycling facility in South Carolina. Wellman is one of only a few companies that make most of the recycled fiber used by American textile mills. It annually recycles about 2.4 billion plastic bottles into a polyester fiber known as Fortrel EcoSpun, which ends up in activewear. Sources: Patagonia Inc.; Wellman Inc.
