It's been a long time coming, but recycled fibres are slowly but surely coming into the fashion mainstream.
For many years we have had a lot of interesting and sensible talking on this subject but the industry was not quite ready to take action.
Now there are leading manufacturers pushing to make an impact in this area.
Ted Baker have brought out a range produced almost entirely from recycled fibres.
Students in our best fashion universities are demanding action -and this is why;
420 million plastic bottles are discarded every day -and that is just in Europe. The US discards a similar amount and I cannot find any official figures on the worldwide figure -but you can bet it will be big, too big.
We have been consuming eye-boggling amounts of plastic for many decades and it will take 450 years to break down each and every plastic bottle. As the plastic slowly breaks down and enters the surrounding ecology our fashion industry are likewise producing ever higher mountains of throwaway fashion that will join these plastic bottles and stay as a polluting presence in their plastic grave.
This does sound depressing but there is good news on our horizon and it is coming our way.
Leading manufacturers are using these PET bottles to produce yarns that can be used to make a variety of products including fabrics and waddings. If the products made from these fibres are of quality then there is no reason why they will be thrown away any time soon. It's what is known as an 'elegant solution'.
We like elegant solutions and that is why we are selling sustainably made waddings and soon we will have a full range of recycled Linings and Interlinings.
Exciting times indeed !