Clothing made from recycled plastic bottles – sounds good

Sneakers, swimsuits or fantastic evening dresses – made from plastic bottles carelessly discarded on the beach or in the sea

Ellen McArthur is fast on the road

At the age of 24, Ellen McArthur won the famous single-handed sailing race Vendée Globe. She was the fastest participant who sailed non-stop, around the world.

It did not remain the only prize for the sailor from England. She won the Route du Rhum sailing regatta, from France to the Caribbean, twice.

Often alone at sea for months at a time, she became aware of the dependence on limited resources and the cycle of the Earth’s entire ecosystem.

After retiring from professional sailing, she founded the Ellen McArthur Foundation in 2009, which aims to promote the circular economy.

In the ideal circular economy, none or significantly fewer of the finite supplies of natural raw materials would be used to produce things. As far as possible, used materials should be returned to the production cycle.

Ellen McArthur demonstrates speed and tenacity here as well. Its foundation has an excellent reputation worldwide and works with important companies and research institutes to move persistently closer to the ideal goal of a circular economy.

In this TED Talk: “The surprising thing I learned sailing solo around the world” you can get a personal impression of Dame Ellen MacArthur.

The images of plastic waste in the sea hurt

Even if you don’t sail the world’s oceans and experience impressively in the Arctic Ocean how interconnected the world’s ecosystem is – the images of plastic waste in the sea hurt us all.

So it feels good to buy sneakers whose fabric comes from plastic bottles fished from the sea or picked up on the beach.

And when designer Tomo Koizumi creates ethereally elegant clothing creations whose organza is also made from the threads of recycled plastic bottles, the world seems to be a little bit in order and stunningly beautiful to boot.

For all Japan fans, we recommend to take a look at his fashion show of the Winter 2021-2022 collection, presented at night in the perfect play of light and shadow in the gardens of Nijo Caste in Kyoto. A fabulously aesthetic feast for the eyes.

Japanese singer Misia, wore a dress by the designer during her performance at the opening of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Too good to be true

But the fairy tale of tailoring a beautiful new dress for Cinderella from plastic waste unfortunately doesn’t have a happy ending (yet). The so-called chemical recycling of plastics, which must be used for this purpose, requires a very high energy input and the addition of fossil fuels.

Intensive work is being done to optimize the process of chemical recycling, as it is urgently needed for many plastic wastes, such as the disposal of wind turbine rotor blades.

Even though it almost feels like a “good deed” to buy the sneaker whose plastic fibers are made from former plastic waste – it doesn’t really make sense for the environment based on current processes (yet).

If you have such a shoe in mind, then it is worth making sure that the soles of the sneakers are made of organic material, because when you walk, the abrasion of the soles on the asphalt releases more plastic particles into the environment.

“Around and round you’re turning me …”

Diana Ross has already pointed out the better way: it is the circular economy that sailing legend Ellen McArthur and her foundation are pushing with verve.

A good example is a piece of clothing that probably all of us have in our closet: The blue jeans.

Compared to a dress made of polyester at first glance a garment that seems somewhat “natural”, because you associate blue jeans with cotton. It’s not quite that simple.

For sure some copies of them are also in your closet

New York tries its hand at the clothing circuit

Every year, 100,000 tons of clothing end up in New York City landfills. The clothing, whose manufacturing process has required large amounts of pesticides, chemicals, as well as CO2 for transportation, etc., 73 percent ends up in the trash and is disposed of in landfills or incinerated.

Only 1 percent of clothing is used as the basic material for creating new clothing.

With a joint campaign by New York City officials, major fashion brands and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the campaign slogan #WearNext was seen throughout the city, on buses, buildings, on ATM displays and across social media from March 4 to June 9, 2019.

Fashion, for all the thoughts about raw materials, is also a lot of fun. Being well dressed gives self-confidence and is career-enhancing in many professions.

From GloriousMe, therefore, a plea for conscious purchases in the best possible quality.

Good design, high quality fabrics, deliberately without plastic content and properly maintained looks good for decades and the best of the best is in the end cheaper for the planet and yourself. But a happy ending.