The fashion industry is wasteful and the supply chain is not looked at in its entirety. Most companies avoid addressing the end-of-life of the garment, leading to most products being discarded in landfills. Fashion garments can take 200+ years to decompose. Hence, the fibres used to create our clothes are recycled cotton and recycled polyester.
While the recycling process is neither simple nor widely available, utilising recycled fibre reduces textile waste and significantly saves water, energy and carbon emissions. Virgin or organic cotton requires intensive use of water and energy in the harvesting process. We reduce Blue Water Consumption (BWC) by 95% in every 1 kg of recycled cotton apparel as compared to virgin cotton. In order to evade use of virgin petroleum as a raw material and divert plastic from landfills, we use recycled polyester. This allows for 36% lesser consumption of blue water as compared to virgin polyester.
Why do we use Recycled Polyester?
Polyester is derived from raw petroleum that is processed and spun into yarn. To avoid introducing ‘new’ raw materials in our supply chain, we have opted for recycled polyester. The process involves melting post-industrial and post-consumer PET (polyethylene terephthalate) waste and re-spinning it into new polyester yarn. For example, five PET bottles can make one large t-shirt. By using recycled polyester, we also provide strength to the recycled cotton, making your purchase last longer and require lesser washes.