100% Recycled Plastic Clothing
- Marina Moore
- Mar 10
- 4 min read
NOT ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY
Recycled polyester clothes are heavily marketed as sustainable, environmentally friendly. To the eco-conscious consumer recycled plastic bottles polyester clothing seems very attractive. For Instance H&M
H&M is turning plastic waste into everyday fashion
Once again, H&M has teamed up with Danone AQUA for the bottle2fashion project, which transforms plastic bottle waste from across the islands of Indonesia into recycled polyester.
H&M kids wear collection is made using bottle2fashion recycled polyester, a more sustainable material used in these everyday pieces with a variety of prints and energetic colours. This time, bottle2fashion collected and recycled over 7,5 million PET bottles, more than double the amount from last year (3.5 million) and this year’s kids wear collection was made from 663,869 PET bottles. The collection will be available in stores worldwide from end of December and online from beginning of January (H&M, 2021)
Coco Cola who in 2018 launched its “World Without Waste Initiative”. Its goal was to use 50% recycled materials by 2030, 100% recycled packaging by 2025 and collection of equivalents of 100% of bottles and cans sold. However, come 2024 a change happen. The Global Plastic Treaty conclude with no agreement. While not excusing Coco Cola from its environmental obligations. The competition for plastic bottles enabled Coco Cola to completely drop their recycling goals. “Due to the challenging collection and recycling of beverage packaging”.
Worldwide use of plastics has increased steadily since the 1950s, with global production constantly increasing with a low global recycling rate of only 9% (Singh, N. 2024). Despite trying to offset the impact of rising global plastic with a major push for recycling plastic. The cumulative global production is projected to triple by 2050 to reach 33 billion tonnes (Persson L. et al. 2022). Plastic pollution will continue to grow, with its toxic impacts. There is plenty of evidence the plastic recycling is not living up to its promises (Davis Allen et al. 2024). It was never intended to be recycled.
“But I have tried to point out the product directions in which newer things are moving. And I hope that I have helped you to see plastic packaging from the viewpoint of one who sincerely believes that its even greater future is in the trash bin” (Stouffer, L, 1963).
While the plastic and fossil fuel industries continue to perpetuate the myth that plastics are recyclable—that plastics can somehow be reused endlessly without creating harmful costs. They also continue with the inadequate disclosure requirements and the lack of transparency of the chemicals and production processes prevents a full assessment of their impacts and undermine the full evaluation of health impacts, limiting the ability of consumers, to make informed choices. Making recycling petrochemical products waste and the resource utilization has been largely ineffective. There are too many critical gaps associated with plastic waste recycling and its potential environmental impacts, the lack of controlled chemical use, and to curb plastic leakage into the environment.
For apparel originally sold in the EU28 high income countries, Japan, the U.S. and EU28 low-income countries, 93%, 80%, 80%, and 77% of the plastic leakage due to mismanaged synthetic apparel waste occurs in second-hand export countries, respectively. This means that apparel consumption in these geographies generates more plastic pollution in the secondary markets that receive their used apparel exports than in their own primary markets (Kounina, A. et al, 2024).
The synthetic apparel value chain is thus responsible for 89% of microplastic waste from the apparel industry, with the cotton and other fibres value chains contributing 9.4% and 1.5%, respectively.
We need to remove all plastic and synthetic fibres. Yet despite the environmental impact, the chemical and fossil fuel industry want to increase production with their new initiative of advance “chemical recycling”. Promoting more recycling, acting the part of a conscious environmentalist. Lobbying government while ramping up plastic production. This idea is false: Plastic recycling as it is today harmful and cannot be considered “circular,” because plastic recycling processes continue to drive plastic pollution and its dangerous and toxic impacts
More false claims which will distract and delay us from the real solution, notably stopping the production of plastic and synthetic fibres.
Ask the fashion brands, why are they using plastic bottles and not recycling textile waste?
Otherwise, the toxicity of plastic and recycled plastics will continue to present an injustice to us all. If we do not change our consuming habits to protect ourselves the petrochemical industry and fashion brands won’t. For many materials, recycling is a useful way of preventing pollution, but not for plastics, or any fossil fuel products.
Coco Cola Co, 2018. “World Without Waste”
Coca Cola Co, 2024 “The Coca Cola Company Evolves Voluntary Environmental Goals”. https://www.coca-colacompany.com/media-center/the-coca-cola-company-evolves-voluntary-environmental-goals
Davis Allen, Chelsea Linsley, Naomi Spoelman, Alyssa Johl, Megan Matthews, Charlotte Marcil, (2024) “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling. How Big Oil and the plastics industry deceived the public for decades and caused the plastic waste crisis”.
H&M 2021 “H&M IS TURNING PLASTIC WASTE INTO EVERYDAY FASHION”. PRESS RELEASE. https://about.hm.com/news/general-news-2021/h-m-is-turning-plastic-waste-into-everyday-fashion.html
Kounina, A. Daystar, J., Chalumeau, S. Devine, J. Gever, R. Pires, S. T. Sonar, S. U. Venditti, R. A. Boucher, J. (2024) “The global apparel industry is a significant yet overlooked source of plastic leakage”. Nature Communications 15, Article number 5022. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49441-4
Persson L, Carney Almroth BM, Collins CD, Cornell S, de Wit CA, Diamond ML, Fantke P, Hassellöv M, MacLeod M, Ryberg MW, Søgaard Jørgensen P, Villarrubia-Gómez P, Wang Z, Hauschild MZ. (2022) “Outside the Safe Operating Space of the Planetary Boundary for Novel Entities”. Environmental Science & technology, Volume 56, Issue 3. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04158
Singh, N. Walker, T.R. (2024) “Plastic recycling: A panacea or environmental pollution problem”. npj Materials Sustainability, Volume 2, Article number 17.
Singh, N. Ogunseitan, O. A. Wong, M. H. Tang, Y. (2022)
Sustainable materials alternative to petrochemical plastics pollution: A review analysis”. Sustainable Horizons. Volume 2 .
Stouffer, L (1963) “Plastic Packaging: Today and Tomorrow”. 1963 National Plastic Conference, The Society of the Plastic Industry.
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