Clothing Industry Embracing Recycled Plastic – Boon or Bane For Industrial Workwear?
At present, the clothing industry is embracing recycled clothing from plastic bottles. Hence, manufacturers of workwear are also committed to providing workwear that is comfortable and sustainable. Recycled polyester workwear offers plastic waste a second purpose as it is made using 100% polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles, which would otherwise end up in landfills and oceans. Recycled polyester is also a sustainable alternative to virgin polyester. Thus, workwear made using recycled polyester offers plastic a new perspective.
Recycled polyester workwear offers plastic waste a second purpose as it is made using 100% polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles, which would otherwise end up in landfills and oceans. Recycled polyester is also a sustainable alternative to virgin polyester. Thus, workwear made using recycled polyester offers plastic a new perspective.
The global industrial workwear market revenue is expected to reach $51.11 billion by 2027.
New Opportunities for Manufacturers
Recycled polyester is now used in designing sustainable workwear, thereby creating a different standpoint for plastics. Sustainable workwear helps in decreasing waste. Therefore, most manufacturers are opting for it. Polyester is an important fiber, particularly for high-visibility safety clothing. It is more luminous than natural fibers in both dry and wet conditions. It is durable, fast drying, and fade-resistant. Hence, while considering sustainable workwear fabric options, the best choice is to recycle polyester.
In industries such as aviation, Akasa Air uses workwear made from recycled marine water waste. Akasa Air is the newest Indian airline. Airways are trying to achieve sustainability by offering their workers comfortable sneakers and jacket trouser combinations. Due to aesthetic and environmental concerns, trouser and jacket fabrics are specifically made of recycled polyester,
How sustainable is Recycled Polyester Workwear?
While it sounds like an easy and sustainable way but recycling plastic has both pros and cons.
Recycled polyester releases microplastics, one of the major factors of plastic pollution. According to a recent study from Plymouth University in the UK, each washing machine cycle can release more than 700,000 plastic fibers into the environment.
Lack of proper Infrastructure is one of the most considerable restraints that manufacturers are facing. Recycling plastics needs proper machinery and also needs adequate technology to produce reusable fabric. This is one of the major challenges which manufacturers are facing.
Most people believe that plastics can be infinitely recycled. Still, each time plastic is heated, it degenerates, so the subsequent iteration of the polymer is degraded, and the plastic must be used to make lower-quality products.
Also, there is still a big debate on how skin friendly the fabric is. The frequent presence of chemicals in PET water bottles, which could be bad for your skin, is another concern associated with recycled polyester. The hazardous element "antimony," which has been linked to cancer, can leach from PET bottles. Although the amount of antimony in rPET clothing is rarely high enough to harm us, Textile Exchange points out that finding alternatives to these compounds will be crucial in the long run. The possibility of hazardous substances leaking into our skin from products created from recycled PET bottles has been thoroughly investigated. Scientists came to the conclusion that there is absolutely no risk to human health from using these recycled materials.
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