Why not take that great feeling you get from dropping off all those plastic bottles for recycling and double it by dressing yourself in clothes made from those bottles?
Not only can you get that good feeling from lessening the amount of waste on this earth, you can rest assured that you’re doing your small part to lessen the work in sweatshops across the world.
There are quite a few companies specializing in making and selling recycled-plastic clothes, and it’s become quite a trend in the last year or so – Sears announced in 2009 it would begin fashioning men’s suits from a blend of wool and recycled PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) bottles and for this year’s World Cup, Team USA’s jerseys (made by Nike) were made with recycled plastic.
There’s also a Portsmouth manufacturer of a line of recycled plastic clothing called Earthtec. Its products – jackets, hoodies and pants – are sold through the Warehouse Clothing Outlet (warehouseclothingoutlet.com) with locations in Portsmouth and North Conway.
Through a process that cleans, shreds, and melts such plastic containers as water bottles and cleaning product packaging, Earthtec creates recycled fiber that can be used as polyester to make clothing. According to Earth-tec.com, it takes about 12 bottles to make one garment. Earthtec also commits to using organic cotton.