Page 22 from: Plastics Special 2020
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What links fashion and plastic bottles? Nothing, consumers might think – but they
would be wrong. US manufacturer Unifi has emphasised the connection by trans-
forming billions of polyethylene (PET) bottles into plastic yarn. Here’s a closer look
at what this innovative company has been up to.
whereupon it is returned to the recy-
cling process.
The separate strands are guided into
a funnel and joined together into a
strong yarn. The yarn is collected onto
a big roller and each batch is gath-
ered on spools. Each spool racks up
yarn at a rate of around 200 km/hour.
These are then collected by an auton-
omous vehicle and transported to the
storage unit.
At this point, the yarn is stiff, almost
like dental floss. To give it more flexi-
bility, the material is moved around on
heated rollers. Samples of each batch
are taken and carefully screened by
lab technicians who count the number
of filaments to verify optimal material
characteristics.
Ingle points out that producing 1kg of
recycled yarn saves enough energy to
power a fluorescent light bulb for over
40 days while providing enough daily
drinking water for a two-person
household.
He is particularly proud of the
Prepreve Our Ocean line, which is
made from plastic bottles collected
within 50 km of coastlines in areas
that lack formal waste or recycling sys-
tems. This way, Unifi hopes to provide
some relief in the fight against ocean
plastics.
More tech, More bottles
Working together with the right com-
panies is vital to ensure progress,
Ingle notes. A recent partnership for
Unifi is with tech supplier Oerlikon to
create a specially designed pilot
machine, called ‘eAFK Evo’. It has
been running at Unifi’s headquarters
since last summer to manufacture
both virgin and recycled polyester and
polyamide yarns.
‘We have obtained exclusive rights in
the Americas to Oerlikon’s unique
design, which enables the new
machine to operate at considerably
higher texturing speeds, delivers con-
sistently high-quality yarn across a
broad range of products and new,
innovative performance yarns,’ says
Tom Caudle, chief operating officer of
Unifi.
‘We are proud to collaborate with
Oerlikon on its innovative new textur-
ing technology that is positioned to
revolutionise yarn manufacturing,’ he
Americans throw no fewer than 35 bil-
lion plastic bottles in the bin every
year. The US mountain is just part of
the massive PET challenge that the
world has to address. The good news,
though, is that the interests of waste
managers and fashion are slowly
merging. More leading brands such as
Ford, Fossil, H&M, Levi’s and The
North Face are turning to recycled
content in their products. According
to Eddie Ingle, ceo of textile manufac-
turer Unifi, based in Greensboro,
North Carolina, these household
names are opting for sustainability as
a ‘growth engine’.
One of the factors enabling this shift
is the company’s ‘Repreve’ line of eco-
friendly fibres, an ever more important
part of Unifi’s portfolio that serves the
manufacture of everyday clothing,
outdoors apparel and sportswear and
even car interiors, each with unique
material characteristics.
‘Our process embeds properties like
wicking, adaptive warming and cool-
ing, water repellence and more at the
fibre level to guarantee reliability and,
most of all, a durable quality,’ Ingle
says.
delicate strands
As a first step, collected PET bottles
are thoroughly cleaned. They are then
chopped, sent through a dryer to get
rid of moisture that would weaken the
final product, are melted, and then
reformulated as recycled chips. Unifi’s
chips, however, subsequently enter a
proprietary extrusion and texturing
process to form Repreve recycled
fibre.
Each extrusion disc has 68 tiny holes
out of which the molten plastic is spun
into filament, five times finer than a
human hair, which cools and hardens
as it exits the recycling line. This mate-
rial is so delicate it sometimes breaks,
A U T H O R Kirstin Linnenkoper
Industry pursues plastic
fibre with great success
Producing 1kg of recycled
yarn saves enough energy
to power a fluorescent light
bulb for over 40 days
54-55_fashion-plasticfibres.indd 54 11-11-20 15:33
