It is important, or, rather, essential, that plastic bottles begin to be reused for other uses. Actually, the bottles … and any object made of plastic. Only, especially bottles, since they represent a very high percentage of the millions of tons of plastic waste that each year go to landfills around the world. To landfills and the sea. The fabrics made with plastic bottles are a very good way to reuse the bottles and prevent these wastes accumulate in landfills and oceans.
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Bottles turned into tissue
The Taiwanese company Super Textile Corporation recycles PET bottles and turns them into material for making fabrics . Thus, with these fabrics from recycled plastic, shirts, scarves or soccer jerseys can be made.
Super Textile Corporation has worked in collaboration with the Tzu Chi Foundation, a Taiwanese charity, with which it has led a project consisting of distributing three hundred thousand blankets made with the fabric they manufacture and that have been distributed among needy people in Taiwan. as well as to help victims of natural disasters in countries such as Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Haiti or Pakistan.
There is still to improve
The Tzu Chi Foundation has 4,500 recycling bins in Taiwan. In 2009, twelve thousand tons of plastic bottles were collected to be reused . For the manufacture of a blanket of 230 x 180 centimeters, 78 bottles are necessary.
The process is laborious. After collecting the used bottles, they are cleaned and classified depending on the color of the plastic. Afterwards, the bottles are crushed and turned into yarn, a yarn that is the fabric with which fabrics can be produced. In this process, only the body of the bottle is usable. Caps and labels must be discarded. However, the company is trying to improve the technology to be able to take advantage of bottle caps as well. After all this process, manufacturing garments in this eco-friendly way is up to 30% more expensive than producing conventional polyester fabrics.
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