How 1.5 Million Plastic Bottles Are Turned Into Clothing Every Day | World Wide Waste
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
- Polyester is one of the most popular fabrics in the world. Made from PET plastic, it is prized for its durability, lightness, and low cost of production. While these characteristics make it ideal for various uses across the textile industry, the oversupply of polyester has also fueled an environmental disaster. Now, brands like Adidas, Nike, and Shein are trying to increase the amount of polyester made from recycled plastics -- but is this the best use of old plastic? We visited Tamil Nadu, India, to see how one company makes clothing from used plastic bottles and whether this is the best solution for this waste stream.
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00:00 - Intro
00:50 - Meet The Founders
01:20 - Collecting Plastic Bottles
01:56 - Sorting Plastic Bottles
03:06 - Secondary Sorting And Hot Washing
04:01 - Molecular Structure And Applications Of Pet
04:22 - Melting, Dope Dyeing, And Stretching Pet Fibers
05:33 - Drawing, Crimping, And Baling Fibers
06:42 - Turning Fibers Into Yarn
08:16 - Historic Use And Demand For Synthetic Fibers
09:54 - Brands Using Recycled Polyester
10:12 - How Shree Renga Makes Clothing
12:07 - Environmental Impact Of Synthetic Fibers
12:29 - Challenges And Solutions For Recycling Synthetic Fibers
12:53 - H&M's Fiber-To-Fiber Recycling Experiment
15:45 - The Future And Challenges Of Fiber-To-Fiber Recycling
17:00 - Emissions, Traceability, And Bottle-To-Bottle Recycling
17:33 - Founders Concluding Thoughts
18:07 - Credits
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#plastic #worldwidewaste #businessinsider
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How 1.5 Million Plastic Bottles Are Turned Into Clothing Every Day | World Wide Waste
being from a hot and humid climate and using polyester on your clothes and bedsheets arent the best combo
100% recipe for swamp ass! Lol
not to mention birth defects and cancer
Yup it traps heat and makes you sweat like a pig😅
And washing this clothing puts tons of microplastics into the water supply. There is literally no end to the ways we are being poisoned by petrochemicals
you're right! we just have to continue to try to avoid single use plastic, so we at least avoid the production of virgin plastic too!
This is so horrible screw India
And not just in the water supply, but into the air in your home as well in the form of dust.
microplastics from clothes arent poisonous but they are bad for the ocean biome
@@gabbonoothey've found microplastic in balls of dudes with erectile dysfunction, so I think it's definitely poisonous
Am I the only one who dislikes polyester? It feels uncomfortable, makes you sweaty and smelly, and doesn't absorb water
@@IgorAlexeyM not at all! I hate all of my polyester clothing.
Cotton for life. Polyester is trash
No, I’m with you. I need natural fibers.
i hate the fact that polyester particles are in my blood and brain, and make up majority of the 240,000 pieces of plastic in a litre of drinking water
I can't wear anything but cotton. Polyester is crap. Smothering out bodies.
when are we going to stop pretending we all don't know the only reason why polyester clothing is so popular is because it's cheaper for the manufacturer, while sometimes selling as expensive as cotton and linen, and the rest is marketing?
cotton isn't very expensive.
When are people gonna realize all these plastic fibers will pollute our dirt, water, air and bodies
@zeusvalentine3638 it's expensive to educate the consumer why they should be buying natural fibers though
@@zeusvalentine3638 "as expensive as" understand the terms
@@zeusvalentine3638 fair trade and ecologically friendly cotton isn't cheap, but it is cheaper from an impact viewpoint than just about any other material.
I HIGHLY suggest you buy only cotton clothes. Polyester leeches into your skin and into the water supply when washed
Linen is great too
Polyester doesn't leech into the skin, the integumentary system is a barrier, not a fiber.
And producing uses so much water and pollutes all the rivers and water systems!!
I like cotton better, but who told you that Polyester leeches into your skin?
@@UnamedUser849 All of synthetic fabrics are essentially plastics, often formulated with harmful chemical additives like phthalates and bisphenols can result in thyroid illness, hormonal imbalance, and neurological problems.
There's also the fact that more than 75% of recycled plastic is unusable because the melting of the plastics destroys a lot of those polymer chains, which is why it can only be recycled so many times.
It’s funny because if they wanted to do something it would actually be very easy. I’m into banning single use plastic production btw. But if we insist on keeping this insane model… it’s simple you just mandate them to produce plastics only that can be easily recycled. I guess the clear plastics etc. etc. u get the point. There’s certain plastics that recycle very effectively. Hello, mcfly… just them make all plastics like that! None of this phony green bottle crap etc. but they will never even get that far. Nobody cares. All anybody cares about is corporate profit margins
It stains forever too 😅 Have you ever tried the clean Spaghetti out of a plastic bowl 😅That color never disappears 😅
and those clothes are spreading plastic all around... microplastic is stored directly in our bodies... how great is it
Truly microplastics are this generations leaded petrol fumes. 😭
@@maciejwidacki1905 it’s better than killing the ecosystem with it. I’d rather be poisoned and in a world that will continue to thrive for millennia than be in immaculate health and a world that is entirely extinct
Yes massive health problems for people
Microplastics galore!
Credit where credit is due, kudos to this team who figured out how to turn plastic waste into textile fibres but main issue is that plastic production is still increasing year by year and recycling it is a joke
This is actually horrible...
What's even more ridiculous that fashion brands are increasingly using Polyester in their expensive clothing.
It's cheap for them, they can make cheap and toxic clothes and sell at ridiculously high prices. They pretend like they care for the nature but the only thing they care is their profits.
Come back to the real world.
While the idea is innovating and I appreciate the hustle to reuse over waste, if large clothing brands, especially fast fashion brands, or any companies that work synthetic textiles are not forced to use recycled polyester there is no point. Like everyone else said in the comments, this is a band-aid solution addressing plastic waste. But we actually need to target the original source of the problem which is overusing plastic and being wasteful with it. ALSO I think most consumers still prefer wearing organic fabrics.
This is going straight to the balls
😂😂😂
@@JPzizou why u gotta shit talk my dreams like that
😂😂😂 Man, hard times being a man
Bruh
Making trash from trash. Brilliant 👏🏻
This is really going to save the planet.
I just want to say turning rubbish into bricks battery boxes and clothes absolutely amazing
This narrator did a logical leap at one point. "So many trucks of clothes are being dumped in landfills are being incinerated, thats why its so important use recycled materials" So that they can end up in the trash again? They didnt address the source of the problem which consumption of polyester fibre or plastic bottles in the first place.
consumption as in humans are ingesting these fabrics and inhaling them as well. These fibre's are responsible for a majority of the micr plastics in our bodys
@@loicpage5640 By consumption I meant companies using the polyester in their textiles to reduce costs and consumers continuing purchase them. Beverage companies have been earning billions of dollars over decades selling their product in pet bottles without considering the consequences and now selling recycling as the cure for the problem they created, when the solution is to adopt alternative packaging materials. The microplastics problem is the result of these companies enjoying profits with disregard to the impact on the environment and to humanity over so many years.
Best solution is to buy high quality clothes made from cotton, hemp fibre etc. and wear them as long as possible.
or just stop wearing cloths.
This is a fascinating process. But I've been seeing a lot of companies "green washing" and replacing cotton clothes with clothes made from recycled plastic. It's really annoying when you prefer cotton and dont want to pay luxury prices for something that used to be affordable.
Sustainable natural fiber fabrics were never affordable. If you got it for cheap then corners were cut somewhere. Cheap cotton is full of toxic chemicals and use cheap labor. Truth is people want to complain about sustainability but don't want to pay the cost for it.
@@la6136right! Even organic cotton has nasty stuff in it and consumes inordinate amounts of water and resources to produce.
It's actually frightening to know that we are also wearing plastic..
its dangerous for our health and very toxic
Why?
@@thebeautifulanimal it's got me hiding under my plastic bed covers
Its very facinating, but I really dont buy polyesterfabric, yarn or clothes!
Nothing feels better than wearing a cotton shirt. Plastic shirts just feel cheap... no matter what random pricetag someone puts on it
25 Metric tonnes a day? Wow!
The plastic in the whole world is almost 400 million metric tons
@@lucifer....6168 25 tonnes is still a significant amount for 1 factory to recycle dailly.
Literally using garbage as clothing impregnated with highly dangerous chemicals.
Great solutions. And great showing the pros and cons of everything. Thank you.
I love to see India thrive! Greetings from germany!
One of the best Business Insider videos I have seen ... Excellent work guys! 👏🏽👍🏽
Top marks to the companies involved too which make videos like this possible!!
I wonder where they pour all the water from the shreader. You know its full of micro and especially nanoplastics. It probably end up in ocean and rivers
@@mrmartyflowers nope. See if you just watched the video for 5 minutes they’d tell you that they reuse it
Well it can't be reused indefinitely though.
Polyester is extremely uncomfortable, especially in hot and humid places. It's not breathable and used to give me rashes. I'm trying to avoid it but it's hard to get cotton trackpants. For everything else, I only wear cotton.
Why is not a single worker wearing gloves? Factory like this, as much as ‘helping’ in sustainability, severely lacks safety protocols and ofcourse often doesn’t treat the outgoing water wastes doing more damage to environment!
@@shivashankar2477 see if you watched the video for at least 15 minutes then you’d understand that they reuse the water and they have more certifications than letters in the alphabet
@@Popshikel i come from the place where these factories exists. Those certifications means nothing here. Lol
@@shivashankar2477 then if they mean nothing then why do you care? And what do you have to say about the water
@@Popshikel The damage is done by the washing machines too, or just regular washing. The little plastic filaments in the clothing break apart (during the washing process) and go into the water that is being used, which probably finds it’s way to the main water source. People or animals then drink that water and the microplastics go into their system. This polyester is made from recycled plastic so it is weaker than normal polyester, therefore breaking down more easily. A simple Google search will prove that recycling plastic weakens the plastic therefore accelerating the process for the plastic to become microplastic. Plastic is a horrible thing and is intoxicating our planet, yes there is no other solution, but this polyester fabric will help plastic spread into bodies of water.
@@Catsy-cy7yi it’s not speeding up the process and spread of microplastics. It’s keeping those discarded clothes from sitting in the sea or the ocean and spreading them that way. It’s one of the best solutions we have for right now.
"A truck load of of clothing goes into a landfill every second." To bring this down clothing brands is taking recyclable bottles out of its recycle ecosystem to turn them into non-recyclable clothes. How is this seen as anything positive?
all of that will produce tons of microplastics that go into the soil and rivers. I've seen many flakes falling out of bags, plastic dust floating around etc. But i't still great that they recycle them instead of dumping them into a landfill.
Getting people to separate waste to recycle items is a HUGE struggle in the USA. Recycling is not mandatory in many municipalities. And, when waste is set aside for recycling, they are not properly sorted.
we should stop recycling plastic period.
I'm shivering at the thought of how much microplsatics those workers have in their lungs but I guess someone gotta do it
So instead of eliminating the use of plastic bottles... let's just make more money on top of it so that in the end we just end up using even more plastic...
I recently purchased sari’s from India labelled “silk” and “pashmina” but was very disappointed that they felt more like polyester than natural products. Better labelling standards are needed for the consumer so they can know what they are purchasing.
Woah i havent thought washing my clothes was introducing microplastics also!!!!!!! Thats crazy to think about. Love you du pont?????
clothes sound really unhealthy. but reusing this stuff for roads n building materials is pretty interesting.. good job for putting the effort to produce the raw material tho ...
Much respect for Shree Renga
Companies : How much microplastics and bad chemicals do u want in your body?
Customer : YES
The person responsible for this process should be awarded a Nobel prize if he has not already.
One day I want to build one like that in Haiti 🇭🇹 thanks 🙏
To everyone saying it's better to just leave the bottles to recycle into new ones, they get all their bottles from landfills and oceans, the bottles would have just sat there if they hadn't have grabbed it. 😊
As long as it is not possible to recycle the textiles this should be seen as a environment hazard. REMOVING recyclable material from recycling is idiotic.
THANK YOU!
Not the most comfortable fabric but far better to reuse then waste
This is a health nightmare
Tbh we need sustainable ways to make clothes. Both plastics and cottons are really unsustainable for mass use. Plastic sucks for microplastics and cotton sucks for the amount of water needed (aral sea)
Yes, very true. And the sustainable way is very simple... Stop over-consuming. Don't buy more than you need, don't buy new trends every season, and don't throw out clothes that are only one year old... Buy fewer but quality items that can last for a long time.
Cotton isn't the only option, there are also other natural materials such as hemp. Look for sustainable clothing brands and what materials they're using, they might have found a natural material they can produce in a sustainable way in that area. Linen, silk and more.
Blackout map was absolutely brilliant including the OG Alcatraz map 👅💋
The people complaining in the comments are missing the point. Even if you don't like polyester because of microplastics, this company is still prolonging the life of single use plastic by reusing it and giving it a few more years before it ends up in a landfill somewhere. Yes it is not perfect but it still makes a big difference. The idea that we are all going to suddenly stop using single use plastic is delusional it is everywhere. That is going to take another 20-50 years minimum. In the meantime it should be recycled.
I wonder how much microplastics are in the lungs of those workers?
Generations after us will look at videos like this and say "What were they thinking!".
Very good 👍
Only 600M plastic bottles are made a year with 8000M humans? I I think this fact is at least 1/10 or 1/100 of the case. Factoid aside, stellar reporting! :)
Great..
Amazing.
very inspirational
Clothes made of plastic don't go well with me and my health promotion. But anyhow we should recycle all abandoned plastics to transform into something else. But all types of recycled plastic would harm our health. The best way of recycling them is to transform it into oil which was invented by South Korean scientists recently. I don't know if that tech has been commercialized or not. But that's the safest way of reusing it. Robes, blankets, shoes... all items made of plastic aren't comfortable honestly cause they are synthesized artificial fabric. Some scientists say that synthesized fabrics emits invisible harmful toxic elements from inside to cause serious disease like cancers.
Same music that taskmaster uses in some of its episodes starting at 1:57
Most people with negative comments don't realize they have been buying and wearing these clothes for years. Check the tags. If you buying anything besides 100% cotton you are buying plastic!
Even in 100% cotton, the yarns are allowed to be from a different material. And polyester yarns are much better for sewing and is more durable
Yay microplastics!
Fantastic
We don’t need to recycle. We need to stop using the massive amount of disposable plastic that we do.
Corporations telling us how we can buy their products and reduce our carbon footprint is absolutely absurd. It’s not OUR responsibility to change THEIR business practices!
Yes. Overconsumption is in our hands. We need to stop buying too much, stop buying plastic everything...
Not pictured: 1.5 million plastic bottles worth of clothing turning into landfill waste
I prefer wearing natural fibers over synthetic.
Retitle the video to "kicking the can down the road", with a side of "no-one knows what's recyclable and what's not?!"
We need factories and facilities like that here in America
nice
Moral of the story, don't shop fast fashion
can you then recycle the recycled materials or would they end up in the landfill?
im surprised theres people that buy polyester clothing, i hate it.
So they reuse the wash water? Now we know why they need to wash it 10x. 🙄
the biggest quesiton - is where is there an American company turning into a mega-corporation doing this same issue with all of our waste plsatics and glass bottles as well ..... ????? !!!!
Oh no. Americans won't do anything. They will just lecture about this and that while polluting the whole world. They have car based cities, they consume God knows how many gallons of petroleum products, they drink sodas from plastic bottles instead of normal water, they need hundreds of plastic Stanley Cups because it's the latest Instagram trend, everything they eat has plastic in it, they want fancy plastic phones, they wear plastic jewellery, but wearing clothes with blended plastic fibre is where they draw the line. Funnily, all their athleisure (LuLu Lemon) wear has a tonne of plastic in it and they wear it to vulgarly stick their bum photos on Instagram for the whole world to see.
They have the gall to criticize a company that is lessening the amount of waste in landfill while dumping their trash in poorer countries.
Funny thing is 'people' buy that crap, and most of the time will even pay premium 🤣
Turning plastic into MICROplastic fibers. Good luck fishing that one out of the ocean.
In other words , we are wearing garbage . Tomorrow we will eat plastic and say we are sustaining food crisis .
Fantastic in theory, but it would be so much better if people just stopped buying plastic. Choose glass or aluminum whenever possible!
And where will the clothing go? I don’t think people are getting it yet
Great
After the clothes, then what? How to re-cycle those plastic in the clothes later?
Can we use this to build ships? Or space ships? Or speace products? Why clothing?
Hello from micro plastics!
Everything needs to be done at scale
Micro plastic heaven.
I notice the workers are only wearing surgical masks. Is that sufficient to protect them from constant exposure to chemical vapor from plastic?
Wait, so to save us from plastic pollution we're going to wear the plastic on our skin? How exactly is that supposed to work?
It’s always the flip flop 🩴 wearing “bibidi bobidi” speakers doing this
I love wearing plastic bottles!
Not sure if it's a good idea to reintroduce plastic in the clothing cycle since almost all of it ends in landfills.
Or worse: as micro plastics in the sea
too bad ecoline doesnt ship to the US. I wouldnt mind trying their shirts
The bottom line is that this recycled polyester costs more than virgin polyester. It's not really viable unless it is cheaper than virgin polyester.
At 1:22 it's 600 Billion bottles a year globally, not million - a crazy number sadly.
Love to see the world recycling.
Drinking Microplastic is crazy 💀
Waterbottles¿
now someone do a study of rise in cancer after Dupont business started.
Just add enzymes to the platic that make it break down within a few years in the environment
Recycling plastic is even worse than producing plastic in the first place, unfortunately. Makes sense in India is doing this. Nothing against the Indian people, but the Indian government has absolutely no concern about pollution it seems. One of the most polluted places on the planet.
That's an easy critism level at a developing country.
@@mrnumba154 and its still true
@@StopFlaggingVideosSo how do you suppose they develop their nation of over a billion people?
Their holiest river The Ganges is so polluted the bodies of dead animal and people and sewage and yet they drink and bathe in the same river.
@@mrnumba154 i propose nothing. i despise plastic waste, and processing plastic in this way is not helpful, not now with what we recently learned about microplastics everywhere from the bottom of the ocean, to the testicles of every man in your family. i take no issue with india at all. my problem is with microplastics
I hope they tell people they are wearing used bottles...
How is plastic more sustainable then cotton? Not only that how and who is recycling those shoes after? Might as well use plastic where people already using plastic.
And y’all wonder why the fertility rates are declining and ppl are getting sicker
@@asahibunni7426 no. We don’t wonder. We already know
Why, because of polymer fiber clothing?
"Declining fertility rates" are not the reason for the decline in neo-natality, it's people no longer affording to have children due to the ever increasing cost of living, among a lot of other reasons, none of them being that they are not fertile enough due to microplastics.
Fertility is most likely just fine, but it takes more than just beimg "fertile" in order to have kids, you know...
There is so much of this garbage clothing out there that literal shipping container ships full of “old” cloths are going to places like Chile. They have huge markets for reselling this clothing and whatever doesn’t sell was trucked to a dump site. This dumpsite in the Atacama Desert was around 59,000 tons of discarded clothing.
Last year there was a wild fire in the clothing dump site that lasted weeks and sent toxic fumes to cities and towns nearby.
Polyester isn’t sustainable by any measure.
I'm glad these folks have come up with this technology; but there are easier ways to reduce our use of polyester. I don't buy fast fashion, it's too cheaply made; buy good quality stuff, use it longer, avoid the latest fashions. I can stand to wear a cotton/poly blend, but I avoid pure polyester clothing; it's not comfortable.
The red flag here is that most of the polyester used in clothes isn't even the type that is recycled so what is even the point of an inferior cloth that not only can't be recycled again but is also creating even more waste and sucks to wear