Barber is a 30-year retail fashion veteran and environmental champion. DGrade’s 185,000 Expo 2020 Dubai T-shirts saved 3.7 million plastic bottles from waste.
“Plastics are made to be recycled” is her motto to get others to recycle.
She said: “Recycling helps us save resources and consume less. The UAE consumes the fourth most bottled water per person, 450 bottles yearly. UAE produces 4 billion plastic bottles annually, with recycling rates below 6%.
We must adjust our behavior to protect the ecosystem. As she demonstrated how plastic bottles become T-shirts, she encouraged people to practice the 3 Rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle.
How are 20 plastic bottles recycled into one adult T-shirt? A Dubai company recycles 60 million plastic bottles yearly and makes 20,000 T-shirts daily.
They want to recycle over 1 billion plastic bottles this year and spin them into polyester yarns for T-shirts, dresses, leggings, and other sustainable clothes.
On June 4, Emma Barber, managing director of Dubai-based DGrade FZ LLC, stated sustainable apparel production reduces plastic waste in landfills.
Recycled-bottle T-shirts are 12–15% cheaper than polyester ones. Oil is a finite resource; hence the manufacturing method is eco-friendly. It saves 50% energy, 20% water, and 55% carbon compared to virgin polyester yarn.
First, bottle tops and labels are removed from recycled bottles.
Plastic bottles are washed, crushed, melted, extruded, and spun into polyester yarn. The yarn can be woven or knitted like fabric to manufacture T-shirts and other sustainable garments. Bottle collection to T-shirt production takes 60 days.
The company makes high-quality polyester yarn from plastic bottles that can be recycled into more than 200 fabrics, including jersey, twill, poplin, canvas, quick dry, felt, denim, and all kinds of clothing and accessories like T-shirts, dresses, shirts, trousers, caps, bags, backpacks, and many others.