Global sportswear giant Adidas aims at eliminating the use of virgin plastics in its products by 2024 — with a little help from a Maharashtra-based firm — the only one of its kind in the country to produce yarn out of discarded PET bottles.
The firm’s technology allows for breaking down used PET bottles to the base product – an ester, which is then used to manufacture yarn.
At its first factory set up in Nashik five years ago, Polygenta Technology Limited deploys a unique technology to break down used PET (short for Polyethylene Terephthalate) bottles and convert them into polyester filament yarn.
The firm, with a capacity to convert 30 tonnes of PET bottles into yarn per day, plans to scale up capacity to around 100 tonnes a day in the next two years to meet demand from the likes of Adidas — one of its first clients.
This would mean Polygenta would be converting around 8 to 10 million bottles a day in a couple of years from now. The yarn produced by Polygenta, currently are being sent to Adidas’ manufacturing centres to be converted into sportswear.
The PET material collection rate in India is nearly 80% — among the best in the world — but a good portion of these bottles are downcycled, eliminating the possibility of further recycling.
Reference- The Hindu, Adidas PR