Clothing from recycled plastic bottles adds to the fashion waste crisis

Polyester clothing made from recycled plastic bottles ‘adds to the fashion waste crisis’ and ‘floods the natural environment with plastic’, campaigners say.

The Changing Markets Foundation with plastic pollution campaign organization City to Sea says that using recycled bottles for clothing is an environmentally damaging practice that also allows brands to wash their collections green.

High-end retailer H&M reports that 90% of its recycled polyester comes from single-use plastic bottles while most companies (85%) examined indicated that they are aiming to achieve their recycled polyester target by using polyester from recycled PET bottles. Retailers such as Nike, H&M, Primark and Zaras parent group Inditex are all using single-use plastic bottles to meet demand for synthetic polyester, campaigners say.

With their carefully marketed green credentials breaking down quickly, brands are clinging to recycled bottles for clothing to distract consumers from their essentially unsustainable dependence on fossil fuels for fiber.

George Harding-Rolls, Campaign Advisor at Changing Markets Foundation commented, saying: Sustainability is not something big business can do like the latest fad. It has to be woven into every level of their operation.

With their carefully marketed green credentials breaking down quickly, brands are clinging to recycled bottles for clothing to distract consumers from their essentially unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels for fiber.

If fashion brands are serious about reducing their environmental impact, they should stop the charade of recycling plastic bottles into clothing and instead focus on reducing their addiction to fossil fuels and limiting overproduction.

A new video released today claims the practice of turning PET plastic bottles into clothes is green washing. The campaigners stated that:

1. once turned into plastic clothing it cannot be further recycled and will instead be thrown away. They say this means the clothes are on a one-way route to a landfill, incineration, or being dumped into nature.
2. turning plastic bottles into clothes removes them from the circular recycling loop where they can be made into new bottles again. Plastic bottles can be collected for recycling multiple times, reducing the amount of virgin plastic needed, or for refilling which helps reduce dependence on single-use plastics.
3. Recycling plastics into synthetics doesn’t help stop the wider microplastic problem, they say. The billions of tiny plastic particles that are released from clothes during manufacture, use and washing still end up polluting the oceans and our bodies through the air we breathe and the food and drink we consume. They say companies should reduce their reliance on synthetic fibers at source.
4. use of recycled synthetic brand tokens is only a drop in comparison to the industry’s reliance on pure plastic, they said. Production of this fiber, which comes from oil and gas, has increased exponentially in fiber over the last 20 years. Campaigners say the use of recycled synthetics distracts consumers from the deeper problems of fossil fuel-dependent fashion brands.
5. Making clothes out of plastic bottles is just a greenwashing ploy by brands to encourage people to buy more of what they don’t need and the planet can’t afford.

Microplastic

The video appears on the back of a report by the Changing Markets Foundation Synthetics Anonymous Fashion a fossil fuel addicted brand, which investigated nearly 50 major fashion brands.

This shows how cheap synthetic fibers are not only dangerous because they enable low-quality clothing that ends up in waste, but they also perpetuate the fashion industry’s dependence on fossil fuel extraction during climate emergencies. Microplastics have also emerged as a critical blind spot for most brands.

The report shows most brands are found asleep at the wheel when it comes to microplastics, delaying meaningful action citing uncertainty and calling for more research.

The solution for consumers is actually simple; buy less, and when you buy, support the reuse economy

By encouraging recycling of bottles into fiber, brands could even exacerbate the release of microfibers by breaking up larger plastics into synthetic fibers that could more easily leak into the environment, campaigners say.

Jo Morley, Head of Marketing and Campaigns at City to Sea added: This new video lays out two problems here and one solution that no one has talked about yet. The environmental impact of fast fashion is huge, as is our obsession with single-use plastics like water bottles.

The solution for consumers is actually simple; buy less, and when you buy, support the reuse economy. For water bottles, this means carrying a reusable bottle and refilling it, and for clothes, this means buying, when you need to, second-hand clothes.