Plastic fantastic — planet-saving style

Find out how man’s waste is fast becoming the fashion world’s darling

By 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish.1 In India alone 25,940 tonnes of plastic waste is generated daily2 — something that the country’s fashion industry is starting to put to good use.

At Lakme Fashion Week, a bi-annual fashion event in Mumbai and one of the hottest dates in India’s fashion calendar, 25,000 plastic bottles were collected from the venue, converted into fabric and made into t-shirts.3 The manufacture of just one t-shirt stops 15 bottles ending up as landfill.

Plastic is also at the heart of the success of Indian performance-wear brand Alcis Sports, which has been making the Wonder Tee from plastic bottles for several years. Similarly, The Summer House, a Bengaluru-based fashion brand, designs swimwear using a nylon yarn made from recycling discarded fishing nets.

As consumers become more aware of how and where clothes are manufactured, fashion is coming under more scrutiny for the way it impacts the planet, from how much water is being used to produce a single pair of jeans (the World Wildlife Fund says that it’s up to 20,000 litres4), to whether material can be recycled or is able to biodegrade.

And it’s not just mass-market producers that are focused on the future of humanity. Luxury designers like Rajesh Pratap Singh are also jumping on the sustainability bandwagon. While there is still a long way to go, the “noise” on sustainable fashion is not going unnoticed as brands come under pressure to become more socially and environmentally responsible when producing fashion.

As the impact of climate change becomes more pronounced, sustainable investing will increasingly be in the spotlight. At Eastspring Investments, we integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations in our investment processes. Learn more about Eastspring Investments at www.eastspring.com

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