Recycled Bottles Become Environmentally Friendly Fabric

Recycled plastic bottles are showing up in more and more unexpected places. Did you ever stop to wonder how a recycled bottle becomes something new and interesting, like car upholstery or carpet?

I read a recent ReadyMade article on Coverleaf that details the process that one company uses to create fabric from recycled plastic bottles. Foss Manufacturing Company creates their eco-friendly fabric from recycled plastic PET bottles, converting 350 bottles into fabric each year.

In order to create their environmentally friendly fabric, Eco-fi, recycled bottles are collected and chipped into flakes. The flakes are then taken to the plant to be melted in huge vats. Once melted into liquid, the material goes through spinarettes to shape it. After cooling, the fibers are formed. The fibers get stretched as they go through a series of seven rollers, and then again around another set of seven rollers. This stretching process strengthens the recycled fibers. The next step in the process uses an entangling system to weave the fiber filaments together to create fabric, which we find in everything from hoodies to craft felt.

According to Foss Manufacturing, 10 bottles equals a pound of fiber, so a sweatshirt is approximately 17 recycled bottles. That is pretty impressive.