🌱 What's the problem with rPET?
We look at the pros and cons of recycled polyester
Happy Monday! Every Monday we suit up and get serious - digging into a climate topic, rounding up the past week’s Good(s) News and sharing updates from across FTF, so you’re never out of the loop.
This week, you’re going to learn:
Why brands in the textile industry use polyester made from recycled plastic,
How it impacts the circular economy,
What you can do to avoid shedding microplastics in the wash,
How you can take action as a brand!
Let’s dive in…
> In Focus
Barbie wears plastics, but should we?
by Lexi Wright
I have one pair of sweatpants I’m constantly getting compliments on. For a long time my response was “thanks, they’re made of plastic water bottles!,” exclaimed as if I was a climate-saving saint. I realized, though, that pants made of water bottles might not be the best option - wouldn’t plastic water bottles made of recycled plastic water bottles be better?
Durable but dirty
My loungewear was made from rPET, a material increasingly used in sweatpants and t-shirts. It’s recycled polyethylene terephthalate (or recycled polyester) and has grown in popularity in the fashion industry thanks to its “perceived sustainability benefits.” Polyester (derived from petroleum) overtook cotton as the queen bee of textiles in the 90s, comprising about half of the garments out there. Though the material is strong and durable, its production is toxic and energy intensive; so when innovators started suggesting that polyester could be made from used plastic water bottles instead, the industry was keen to hop on board.
Many leading brands use rPET with an aim of increasing the sustainability of their business. Non-profit Textile Exchange partnered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Fashion Industry Charter to create the Recycled Polyester Challenge. 58% of the Challenge’s 124 signatories (including brands like H&M Group, J. Crew, Gymshark, and Target Corporation) have committed to replacing 100% of their virgin fossil-fuel based polyester with recycled by 2025.
A massive 99% of rPET in the fashion industry is made from water bottles. This is certainly a good step forward and better than using brand new polyester to create garments, but it’s not a silver-bullet solution. To achieve circular economies, we need to do even better.
Bottle-to-bottle, textile-to-textile
A better solution than turning water bottles into garments is keeping these items in a closed-loop system. Ideally, plastic water bottles are recycled back into the beverage industry. When a water bottle is turned into a garment, that most often becomes the product’s final stage of life. Because rPET is produced through the disintegration and melting of water bottles (the common way) rather than chemical decomposition, it faces a steep quality decline in its second recycling cycle and loses value to recyclers. With the average number of wears of a garment being only seven, a lot of rPET is ending up in landfills. The EU also frowns upon the bottle-to-garment process as it competes with closed-loop bottle recycling. One innovator making waves in the bottle-to-bottle space is Germany’s Schwarz Produktion, who supply for Lidl, Kaufland, and more.
To turn textiles back into textiles requires chemical recycling, which breaks textile waste down to the molecular level. Innovation in this space has been largely led by start-up technologies like Ambercycle, CuRe Technology, Circ, and BlockTexx. These technologies are growing in popularity, but none have yet been funded or scaled to the degree required. Leading brands are starting to get involved though, with H&M backing start-up Syre, and Puma moving away from bottle recycling and opting for polyester made of scrap material and worn garments.
Sneaky little microfibres
Another major downside of rPET is that it sheds synthetic microfibres into our oceans and ecosystems. Microfibres are released when garments are manufactured, worn, or washed. Three ways that you, as a consumer, can manage microfibre release are to:
Manufacture or wear more natural fibres, rather than synthetics.
Shop second hand, as the majority of microfibres are released in the first few washes of a garment. The longer a lifecycle we can give something, the better.
If you, like me and just about everyone else, already have rPET or synthetic garments, consider purchasing a microfibre collector from PlanetCare or GUPPYFRIEND to add to your washing routine.
Creating new uses for plastic is not the key to a plastic-free future. Let’s shoot for best-case solutions that lessen our dependence on plastics when possible, rather than incremental changes within the current system.
How can brands in the textile industry take action?
Consider the whole lifecycle of your products.
Use fibres that can be home composted like hemp or bamboo (carefully considering the environmental pay-offs).
Avoid creating collections that follow short-lived trends.
Looking for inspiration? Dive into our archives to read about how the RE-PETE Project and Houdini are integrating circularity.
> Follow up with…
Article: The Promise and Pitfalls of Recycled Polyester by Fashion Takes Action
Article: Why H&M is turning away from polyester recycled from bottles by Green Biz
> Last week in consumer goods x climate…
The Good(s) News
Up and coming brands…
Bigger organisations…
⭐ KitchenAid announced their partnership with Trojan Electronics to help bring back appliances to their original working condition and significantly extending the lifespan. Trough the new partnership, Trojan will provide a 10-day turnaround for customer repair.
⭐ ba&sh announced that they are now B Corp certified!
⭐ Nestle UK announced that majority ingredients in their chocolate brands have been sourced from cocoa farming families that are part of Nestle’s Income Accelerator Programme. By 2030, the programme aims to reach an estimated 160,000 cocoa-farming families in the brand’s cocoa supply chain to create impact at scale.
Industry wins…
⚡️ City to Sea announced their open letter to call for legally-binding reusable packaging targets, aiming for 30% of packaging to be reusable by 2030. They also call for a complete ban on unnecessary single-use plastic packaging and full support for a robust Global Plastics Treaty.
Want good news sooner? We post our top 5 stories every Friday on LinkedIn! If your CPG brand has good news to share, let us know.👇
> In case you missed it
Want more? Here’s what’s happening across FTF at the moment…
Last week we featured Minor Figures in The Check-Out. Catch up to learn about how this brand is innovating to reduce the impact of their packaging.
FTF team member Ellie is heading to Groundswell on the 26th and 27th June. Groundswell is a regenerative agriculture festival. Keep an eye out for her if you are there!
We love that we get to interact with brands more and more for the newsletter. If you are a consumer goods brand or an environmental partner, don’t be shy! Reach out and find out how we can work together.
That’s it for today!
Want more? Check out ‘The Check-Out’ this Thursday for the latest brands in our basket. In the meantime, if you have any topics that you would like us to dig into, ping us an email on info@followingthefootprints.com to say hi!
Much love,
Team FTF