Puma announced it is replacing recycled polyester sourced from PET bottles with chemically recycled material in all Puma football Club and Federation replica jerseys from 2024 onwards.
The move is part of a scale up of its Re:Fibre programme, which aims to address the challenge of textile waste via a ‘long-term solution’ for recycling, according to a company statement.
The Re:Fibre process focusses on textile waste as the primary source of material, which is shredded, dissolved, and filtered through a chemical recycling process, according to Puma’s website, likely solvolysis. All Re:Fibre garments are made of at least 95% of recycled textile waste and other used materials made of polyester. Puma says the recycled material is ‘just as good as new and can be used for recycling again and again without losing quality’.
The German clothing brand said the traditional way to turn recycled PET bottles into new textiles ‘isn’t working well for recycling polyester textile waste’, without adding more details.
“Our wish is to have 100% of product polyester coming from textile waste,” said Anne-Laure Descours, Chief Sourcing Officer at Puma. “Textile waste build-up in landfills is an environmental risk. Rethinking the way we produce and moving towards a more circular business model is one of the main priorities of our sustainability strategy.”
Puma has set up ‘take back points’ at many of its stores in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the UK for customers to deposit their old garments, who are then rewarded with a voucher for future purchases. Only garments made from 100% polyester can be collected.