BENGALURU: A Tamil Nadu-based garment innovation company is spearheading the revolution to popularise and economise production and purchase of clothes made of recycled PET bottles. Their products t-shirts, jackets and other fashionable products are sold like hotcakes at the India Energy Week and they have received bulk customised orders from many companies.
Senthil Sankar, a polymer technologist from IIT who was in the textile sector, was concerned about the environmental degradation that is caused by PET bottles. He made up his mind to find a solution to the problem. In 2020, Senthil along with his father Sankar, started the venture ‘Ecoline’ where recycled PET bottles are converted into fashionable clothing.
The PET bottles are turned into flakes, which are melted at around 300 degrees Celsius and then dyed and converted into yarns. These yarns will then be converted into fabric material and then stitched into different garments, Senthil said and added that 6 PET bottles go into the making of one t-shirt.
While the traditional textile industry is water-intensive, Senthil said that in this innovative technology, not a single drop of water is used.
“Our products are available online and we customise the product based on the customer’s and company’s needs. Our products are available for as low as Rs 350 and go up to Rs 2,000. We aim to make the fashion industry more sustainable and find address the inappropriate behaviour of disposal of PET bottles across the globe,” he said.