Recycled Plastics - Post consumer waste vs Industrial waste.

So often we talk about recycled plastics, but are not really sure what we mean. Did you know you can call some polyester products "Recycled", but they have actually been made from industrial waste and not post-consumer waste. And is it 100% recycled or simply a percentage of the material is recycled which allows the retailer to label it recycled even though its not entirely true.

Industrial recycled waste means, the polyester yarn was made using waste made from the manufacturing of virgin plastic. Technically the polyester waste from a virgin polyester production plant is no longer virgin if it is repurposed after production. For example if the plastic waste collected from a plant producing virgin plastic and is used as the raw material for the production of something else it is no longer virgin plastic, it is now technically classed as recycled polyester. I think this can be misleading, good efficient manufacturing should be using it's own waste and putting it back in the pipeline. It is not wrong to create a raw material from repurposed waste from the creation of virgin polyester production but it is misleading to call it "Recycled polyester", when it is not clear to the consumer, who might think this has been produced from the recycling from our household waste.

True "Recycled Polyester "in my view should be made from post consumer waste, (our day to day rubbish). Post Consumer Waste is the plastic waste you throw away in the recycle bins every day. This plastic waste is then collected, sorted, ripped, melted, chipped and used to produce other polyester products like the polyester yarn in Jody and Lara swimwear. This recycled polyester is slightly more expensive to produce than other products labelled "Recycled Polyester" . That's because there is also lots of contaminants in the consumer waste which need to be removed, like bottle labels; crisp packets; fluid still remaining in the bottle; bottle lids and other undesirables. Because it's more expensive to produce this kind of recycled polyester, it is not often used, because it creates a more expensive product, which many people are not prepared to pay for. However, I believe in time as more and more people begin to see the value of true recycled polyester made from post consumer waste, the economies of scale will kick in, and the price will eventually come down, and this will be the normal way of producing polyester.♻️

The cover-up swimwear from Jody and Lara range is made from plastic bottles which have been used and then thrown away - Post consumer waste. The bottles are collected from recycle bins, sorted and the plastic bottles are melted and extruded into long thing filaments to make the yarn. The yarn is knitted into fabric, along with some elastane to give you the stretch and performance you need in great swimwear.

This swimwear believe it or not also has one of the lowest carbon footprints on the market, this is because the fabric is printed and not piece dyed. Dyeing fabric (piece dyed) particularly polyester or Nylon fabric has a huge energy bill because of the temperature required to heat up all that dyed water under high pressure. This becomes one of the areas in the production of swimwear which has the highest CO2 impact. Which is not the case with printed fabric.

So you can breath a sigh of relief, I have tried to ensure this swimwear has the highest ethical and environmental standards.  Which makes this swimwear if not the most sustainable swimwear brand in the world but on its way to becoming the most sustainable swimwear. I just need to bring production close to the market and limit delivery miles and I am on to a winner! Enjoy! Lx