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Polyester is one of the most common fabrics around. In fact, you’re probably even wearing it right now. From activewear and dresses to workwear and knits, a huge percentage of our high street fashion is made up of polyester - aka plastic. Plastic waste is a mounting environmental crisis in the fashion industry.
According to recent data from the UK's Environment Agency, over 5 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated annually, contributing significantly to global pollution levels.
This is a problem that is suffocating our oceans and harming our earth.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation reports that by 2050, there could be more plastic in the ocean than fish if current consumption and waste management trends continue.
We urgently need something to change.
And solutions like recycled polyester seem to be offering a step in the right direction.
But is recycled polyester the answer?
What is Recycled Polyester?
Recycled polyester is - you guessed it - the recycled alternative to standard polyester.
(You might have also heard it abbreviated to rPET).
Recycled polyester is all over the highstreet, with many brands announcing it as their answer to the fashion industry’s plastic problem. We want to
Myth: Recycled Polyester Comes From Recycled Clothes
It’s commonly thought that clothes made from recycled polyester are made from recycled clothes.
That would make sense, right?
Unfortunately, this is very rarely the case.
The majority of polyester clothing is actually made from blended fabrics, and these are very challenging to properly break down to make into something new.
That’s why over 99% of the recycled polyester we see actually comes from plastic bottles, (according to stats from Textile Exchange).
Old plastic bottles are used because they are a purer form of plastic than the clothes, and getting your hands on bottles tends to be a lot easier than finding the old clothes that are made from 100% plastic.
How is Recycled Polyester Made?
The process of making recycled polyester involves collecting the waste plastic, sorting by colour and type, and shredding into tiny pieces, then melting and extruding them into a fibre or yarn that can be spun like any other thread into fabrics.
Once it’s been made, recycled polyester can be used in all the same ways that normal polyester can.
Usually we see it being made into clothes, but it can also be used for making bags, carpets and packaging, among many other things.
What is Recycled Polyester Used For?
If you’re looking for it, you’ll find polyester absolutely everywhere. It’s the most commonly used fabric in pretty much all of our highstreet stores.
Even cotton and natural fabrics are often mixed with polyester, due to it being cheaper, more durable and easier to produce than natural fabrics.
Increasingly we’re seeing brands swapping to recycled polyester, taking a step towards more sustainable products.
It looks and feels the same, but it’s more sustainable - clearly the obvious choice!
What are the Advantages of Recycled Polyester Fabric?
A Kinder Production Process
Virgin polyester is the name we call bog-standard polyester, and it’s made from petrochemicals, which come from crude oil. The process involves using a lot of non-renewable resources and energy, and in general is pretty harmful to the planet.
Especially because so much of it is being made all of the time.
Creating recycled polyester on the other hand, uses waste plastic instead of new resources, keeping as much waste plastic out of landfills and oceans as possible.
The process also uses less energy than creating virgin polyester, so it’s a real win-win.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), recycling one tonne of plastic bottles saves approximately 3.8 barrels of oil and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by around 1.5 tons of CO2 equivalent.
The Impact on the Environment
Plastic waste is a huge problem for our environment, and the more that we can recycle our old things, the less ends up polluting the planet, and releasing microplastics into our earth and ocean.
What’s great about plastic, is that it can easily be recycled, so finding solutions like recycled polyester, that can be used widely and replace a non-recycled fabric means the impact has a lot of potential.
It Reduces the Need for New Polyester
The more that recycled polyester can be used instead of new polyester, the less new resources need to be used to create our materials.
As well as reducing the amount of waste created, it reduces the amount of energy needed, and the amount of new non-renewable resources that need to be taken from the earth in order to make our clothes.
This makes it a much better option than virgin polyester.
Where can you Find Recycled Polyester?
Major fashion brands and companies from all sorts of industries are embracing recycled polyester as part of their sustainability commitment. From high street to high end, it’s great to see so many brands adopting it as part of their collections.
Here are a few we love:
Our awesome brand partners Finisterre are big advocates for recycled polyester over new. In fact, they use recycled fabrics instead of new wherever possible, transforming everything from old wool jumpers to wetsuits into their highly functional outdoor gear.
In 2022, 87% of the synthetic polymer fabrics they created were made from recycled materials, which is a very impressive number.
Our brand partners TALA are also advocates for recycled polyester. Their Skinluxe range is 76% recycled. Their fabrics come from both pre- and post-consumer waste, meaning some of the plastic they use in their recycled fabrics actually come from recycled fabrics. As we know, that’s a big challenge, so it’s great to see them going a step above and beyond.
Patagonia
Patagonia is a brand that’s always striving to do the right thing for the planet, which means that recycled polyester features extensively in their outdoor clothing and gear too. They were actually the first ever brand to use recycled bottles to make their fleeces - all the way back in 1993!
Many other highstreet and high-end brands are incorporating recycled polyester into their ranges, and it’s only growing in popularity year on year.
What are the Disadvantages of Recycled Polyester Fabric?
There are tons of positives to using recycled polyester instead of virgin polyester, and it’s a brilliant option for so many brands.
Though it’s a great solution and a definite step in the right direction, unfortunately, it’s not perfect. (Few things in the textile industry are).
Microplastics
Because it’s still made from plastic, recycled polyester has the same issue as any other plastic based fabric - the dreaded microplastics.
Essentially, the tiny plastics are released during your wash cycle, and end up finding their way into waste water and eventually the ocean, impacting marine life and even making their way back into us through our food.
Normal polyester also releases microplastics, so it’s not any worse for the planet, and investing in a washing filter will stop them in their tracks.
It’s Hard to Create
Collecting and sorting the plastic waste needed to make recycled polyester can be an expensive task and a logistical challenge. When working with used bottles and food items, plastics can be contaminated, which makes the recycling process even more complicated.
There is also a worry that with the growing popularity of recycled polyester, there’s a growing need for single-use bottles.
But as we know, the best solutions aren’t often the easiest ones. Though there are challenges to making recycled polyester, it’s certainly not impossible, and the more it grows in popularity, the more accessible it becomes.
It’s Not Biodegradable - Plus it’s Hard to Recycle
One of the major concerns is that it’s still difficult to recycle recycled polyester, and it doesn’t break down naturally like cotton or bamboo fabric does.
Every time polyester is mechanically recycled, the fibre quality reduces, which eventually means that it ends up being too low quality to be made into clothes.
Because the fibres degrade over time, it isn’t a closed-loop system.
Recycling Recycled Polyester
Polyester recycling is tricky, regardless of whether a fabric is recycled or not.
The more that highstreet brands opt for recycled polyester over natural materials, the more of an issue we have with end of life recycling.
Even if a fabric comes from recycled materials, it’s very unlikely that it will be recycled at the end of its life.
However there is a solution, and it’s becoming more and more popular - textile to textile recycling.
Textile to textile recycling is a method where old clothes and textiles are made into new clothes and textiles.
The dream.
At the moment, less than 1% of textiles are made into new textiles. This is mostly because there are so many clothes being made and thrown away every day, and collecting, sorting and processing them can be challenging.
Side note: That’s what we do here at Reskinned, and we’re always working out ways to make it quicker and easier for you to send us your old textiles so that we can recycle them.
With textile-to-textile recycling, we can make sure that clothes are recycled again and again and again,so they can be saved from entering landfill while avoiding the need for new resources.
More Sustainable Alternatives to Recycled Polyester
Sustainable Natural Fibres
Natural fabrics are able to break down in the way that polyester garments can’t, meaning at the end of their life, they won’t release harmful plastics into the environment.
Fabrics like organic cotton, hemp and bamboo make great alternatives to polyester, and are fairly easy to find, and often not too expensive, so if you can switch out the synthetic fabrics for natural ones, then you could make a decent impact on the environment.
In reality though, sometimes a synthetic fabric is going to be the best thing to fit your needs. For workout gear and clothes that need a lot of stretch and durability, natural fabrics probably won’t be as long-lasting as opting for polyester.
Choosing Circularity
Ultimately, the more you make good choices, the better your impact on the planet will be.
And choosing recycled polyester over the non-recycled stuff is a strong step in the right direction.
For brands, it needs to come as part of a bigger plan - swapping to recycled polyester isn’t enough.
We need to also think about how to reduce the amount of waste created, and maximise the value of the resources used. That means designing with reuse, recycling and longevity in mind - just like our amazing brand partners do.
How Can You Take Part in Circularity?
For us as shoppers, choosing circularity is even easier.
By supporting circular businesses, like Reskinned, you can buy your clothes in a circular way.
Here are a few steps we can take to shop more circularly:
- Support the good guys! Choose to buy from brands who are prioritising genuine sustainability and transparency in their practices.
- Stay educated. Read resources like the Reskinned blog to stay up-to-date with what’s going on in the world of sustainable fashion.
- Use your voice. Tell brands and companies that are doing a bad job that there is a way to be better. If you love a brand, but they’re not using recycled materials, then let them know. The more we shout, the more they’ll listen.
- Shop pre-loved. Of course, the best way to minimise your impact is to choose things that have already been made. Recycled fabrics are a great start, but recycled clothes? Even better.
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