Material Moment: The new 100% recycled tracksuit material!
Within the Mini Me Collection we introduced a new material to our selection: a tracksuit material made out of 100% recycled raw materials. There are two types of tracksuit fabric in the collection - the printed version and the mono colored version. The fabrics are made of recycled polyester, recycled nylon and recycled elastane. In this blog post we will be going through the materials in more depth. We will also be sharing the different types of certificates the fabrics have and their requirements.
Materials
The printed track jackets- and pants are made of a mixture of polyester and elastane. The mono colored ones are made of a mixture of nylon and elastane.
The finishing processes and the dying of the materials is also done in nature-friendly manners. The goal throughout the whole production is to keep the production process as neutral for the nature as possible and that the end products are truly safe to use.
Recycled elastane
Both the printed and the mono colored fabrics use recycled elastane. The elastane we use has been recycled in Germany and it’s GRS-certified. The thread is born by collecting the industrial surplus of elastane thread, separating them from the paper tubes and by spinning them again. This process helps to reduce the amount of industrial waste and gets the perfectly fine materials into active use. The process has also been optimized for a low need for water by creating a water flow system that uses the same water over and over again.
Recycled polyester
The recycled polyester used in the printed track jackets- and pants is made of recycled PET-plastic that is gathered from used plastic bottles. The material is GRS-certified. For every kilo of PET, three kilos of CO2 is saved. Along with this, the production saves approximately half of the amount of energy compared to a non-recycled version. The coloring and finishing processes are done during the spinning process, which is a more nature friendly option compared to traditional processes.
Creating thread from a plastic bottle is surprisingly simple. The bottles are collected and cut into pieces. After this the plastic is grinded and melted, and then cooled into regular shaped pieces. After this the material is melted again and made into polyester fibers that are then spinned into thread.
Recycled nylon
The recycled nylon used in the track jackets- and pants is SCS Global Standard- and GRS certified.
The recycled nylon comes from Spain. It’s made out of industrial surplus by spinning the nylon polymers into thread. This lowers the CO2 impact by 53% and decreases the amount of industrial waste created. 1000 kilos of recycled nylon decreases the CO2 impact by 1424 kilos, which is roughly the amount of driving 8544 km.
Certificates
Global Recycled Standard - GRS
GRS-certificate is an international standard that requires certain things both in the production system, in the product itself and also in the company policies. The requirements are to do with recycling, the amount of recycled materials in products, chemical limitation and the ethics of the production process.
The certificate can be applied, if the product at hand contains at least 50% recycled materials. This is not the only requirement - the whole company is looked at through the working conditions, social responsibility and the environmental hazard minimizing acts of the company. The companies and products receiving the certificate are followed through out even after receiving the certificate and the certification are valid for one year at a time.
SCS Global Standard
SCS Global Standard is a party that follows environmental friendliness of many industries and product types. The nylon used in the track jackets- and pants is on SCS Global Standardin certified, so SCS Global Standard has gone through the whole production process and found the processes to meet its standards. The standards are high: the transparency of the production, the sourcing, the products age, the usability of the product, company recycling and waste management systems - and many more.
The Bluesign® system
The Bluesign® system is an environmental party that functions in the textile industry. The Bluesign® system certifies products and companies based on their efforts on creating textile products with the lowest possible environmental impact. The Bluesign® is an active environmental advocate, that supports textile companies on their way to more environmentally friendly production processes. The company manufacturing the fabrics used in our track jackets and track pants is a The Bluesign® system partner and they actively co-operate with the organization.
