In an age where dressing up in style has become very important, the urge to wear trendy clothes leads to dumping old ones. These clothes are often unrecyclable, which makes them harmful to the environment. Moreover, the process through which they are manufactured also pollutes and harms the environment in several ways.
That is where Sustainable Fashion comes in. It has become a new trend in the fashion industry. It serves as a way to be mindful of the environment and keep your style statement intact. This eco-friendly fashion offers you a variety of options so that you don’t have to compromise your style. At the same time, it also helps save the environment by using fabrics made by the upcycling or recycling ocean and plastic waste.
Around 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated in India every year. Several enterprises are developing fabrics out of it to lower its impact on the environment. They convert the plastic waste into the fabric and then create beautiful salable products out of them.
Here are 5 Indian enterprises that are upcycling and recycling plastic into the colourful fabric:
1. Trash to Treasure
Trash to Treasure is a start-up founded by Aditya Banger in 2021 that makes fabrics out of plastic waste. It collects plastic waste, majorly PET plastic, from municipalities, rag pickers, and big companies like Pepsico, Coca Cola and Bisleri. All this waste undergoes the process of conversion through which fibres are converted. It is then given to its parent company to convert the fibre into fabric and sell further for making clothes.
2. Alcis Sports
Alcis Sports is a Paragon Apparels Pvt. Ltd. brand founded in 2017 by Roshan Baid. It manufactures sportswear. It is India’s largest sportswear manufacturing and exporting brand. It offers technologically advanced high-quality sportswear at affordable prices. It sticks to its key value of sustainability. Thus, it manufactures sustainable sportswear in its sustainable range by collecting plastic and then converting them into a fabric which is comfortable, lightweight and breathable.
3. Ecokaari
EcoKaari is a social enterprise founded in 2020 by Nandan Bhat. It upcycles plastic to produce handcrafted fabrics with the help of Charkha and Handloom. They are then used to stitch eko products. Because all their work is done by hand, they also create employment opportunities for people. They have three pillars for sustainable development- Planet, People and Communities. With all three of them, they are creating safe products for the environment. Their product range includes beach bags, tote bags, moon bags, wallets, fanny bags, etc.
4. Polycycle
Polycycle is a plastic recycling company that transforms about 5.5 million PET bottles daily to make recycled polyester staple fibre. It can produce 100 tons of fibre. They produce more than 50 dope-dyed colour fibres without using a single drop of water. Besides, all its projects used solar and wind energy. Thus, making it a complete environment-friendly option. Its product range includes raw white polyester staple fibre, dope dyed polyester staple fibre, polycycle antimicrobial fibre, etc.
5. RawCycle by RAW Pressery
RawCycle is a sustainable clothing initiative by a Mumbai-based start-up- RAW Pressery. It is a health and food beverage start-up founded in 2013. After realising the harmful effects plastics have on earth, Atiya Rakyan, the Chief Recycling Officer of RAW Pressery, came up with the idea of recycling their juice bottles to make t-shirts called RawCycle in 2019.
To do this, they collect plastic from their customers and recycle them into RawCycled t-shirts. They are made of 95% recycled plastic and 5% spandex and are wrinkle-free, comfortable and reversible.
