Its Not Made In China, a patented company that brands bottles, T-shirts and bags, not only plays its part in the recycling process, but has partnered with a converter that transforms plastic bottles into fabrics.
Its Not Made In China have made recycling bins for placement at various retail outlets and coffee shops that stock its products and have a partnered with its water delivery team to take back empty bottles from clients that it delivers to. These empty bottles are consolidated at provincial depots and returned to Extrupet, the recycling processing plant, to be recycled back into bottles and other applications.
By creating a demand for recycled content, the company is ultimately supporting the recycling process. This demand is in the form of rPET (recycled PET) for use in food-grade application i.e. bottle to bottle circular economy recycling as well as demand for the rPET fibre to be used in the production of T-shirt fabric that is made from 65% rPET (recycled PET) and 35% cotton as well as the bag fabric, which is a non-woven felt made from 100% rPET. At the end of life, all these products can be upcycled, recycled or re-purposed.
The process:
• PET bottles are collected by informal waste collectors as well as formal recycling businesses across the country.
• The PET bottles are taken to Extrupet, who wash and chop the bottles into chips or flakes.
• These chips are used in food grade application to make new bottles made out of rPET or are sent to Propet.
• Propet converts the chips into small pellets that are extruded through their machines to produce fibre.
• This fibre is used in the manufacture of the non-woven felt as well as many other fibre uses such as duvet and pillow inners and even knitted into T-shirt fabric.
• The finished fabric is sent to local manufacturers to produce the shirts and bags. Its Not Made In China purchase the bags and shirts from the manufacturers who receive the recycled material, completing the circle.
Features and benefits:
• Reduces withdrawal of non-renewable resources such as oil/fossil fuels by using recycled content (rPET = recycled PET bottles).
• Saves carbon emissions, water and energy and has significantly less environmental impact than virgin fibre.
• International standards and best practice are applied in all operations, ensuring quality, environmental, social compliance and responsibility.
• The entire process from raw material (PET bottles) to fabric is 100% local, ensuring support of the South African economy, the local textile industry, the circular economy and recycling economy. The T-shirt fabric is 65% rPET and 35% cotton. The cotton is sourced from Southern Africa.
IT’S NOT MADE IN CHINA +27 (0) 62 167 3625 hey_you@itsnotmadeinchina.co.za http://itsnotmadeinchina.co.za
