Recycled Polyester was our choice for the new eco-insider fleece’s. Why? Because although plastic isn’t ideal, we don’t yet live in a world where it isn’t part of our everyday lives.
The best we can do right now is to dedicate ourselves to recycling every bit of plastic we use. In addition, we can find ways to re-use it, or invest in everyday items made from recycled plastic.
Lanzarote eco-insider Fleece Wear
From Waste to Wear
Ever wondered how you end up wearing a recycled plastic item of clothing? You’ve just finished a delicious bottle of your favorite mineral water, and you toss the empty bottle into the recycling bin. What happens next?
The bottle travels all the way to a recycling center. Here it will be shredded. Shredding is an important step because when we throw out our bottles, more often than not we leave residue inside them. Moisture is a bad thing for this recycling process, so shredding gets rid of those extra drops of water or juice. After shredding, the bits of plastic are ripped up and shipped abroad.
These bundles of shredded plastic are what most would consider as large bags of rubbish. Wrong! The plastic flecks are actually extremely valuable materials if you’re in the polyester production business.
Recycled Plastic Sorting
When the plastic bundles arrive at their destination, they’re sorted based on color. Clear plastic is better for the purpose of making clothing. Clear bottles produce crisp white thread, which can be dyed in all sorts of colorful ways.
There’s a lot more to the sorting process. Bottle caps are made of tougher plastic and won’t do for polyester thread. So they have to be taken out somehow. Conveniently, the plastic used for caps float! The unwanted bottle caps are sifted out when the plastic is put through water.
Follow the Thread
Next the mixture is sent through hot pipes to melt down the plastic. In order to make thread, the molten plastic flows through tiny holes to make filaments. These threads are 5 times finer than a human hair!
Lastly, in order to get the raw substance needed to make polyester, it’s torn up again! Really. The plastic filaments are torn into fluff that eventually gets strengthened into the polyester thread. A process similar to the production of cotton. There you have it! An entirely man-made product, but made from the materials that we toss in the recycle bin!
Now you know exactly how our new eco-insider fleece jumpers were made..
Re-usable is always best
There are only so many Fleeces we can buy to help the plastic crisis on our planet. We still have to reach the core solution and what this means is simply cutting back on buying plastic
Bottles for Life
“People will be able to refill water bottles for free in tens of thousands of places in England in the near future. Following the announcement of a new national scheme by the water industry (Thursday 25th January 2018). It’s estimated that the new scheme will cut plastic bottle use by tens of millions each year as well as substantially increasing the availability of high quality drinking water.” **Blog content by Water UK.
Not as easy when you visit a foreign country admittedly. Why not bring your favourite reusable water bottle on holiday with you. Perhaps you won’t be able to access fresh water from the taps, but you can cut back drastically on your carbon footprint by refilling your personal bottle. Try not to buy small individual bottles everyday. Avoid buying anything less than 5-10 litres in one single bottle of water from the supermarket.
Which reusable water bottle is best
Finding Your Perfect Bottle..
Drinking plenty of water is the most important daily routine in our lives. We start by setting ourselves the target of drinking 1 litre of drinking water per day. Next we try to find the best ways to stick to that target. Buying the right size bottle is a good place to start.
Once you’ve found the right size, you want the right shape for your bag. A lid that doesn’t leak too please. Ok so it’s a minefield! We loved this recent list of ‘The top 12 suggestions by The Independent
Once you’ve found your perfect drinks bottle (Free from BPA’s) bring it along on your next holiday to Lanzarote! If you join one of our guided tours we will be more than happy to re-fill it for you.
See you soon!
Take a look at local group Plastic Awareness Lanzarote. This is a forum for individuals living/visiting Lanzarote to share ideas. Supporting actions to help keep our oceans clean from single use plastics.
