Swedish fashion brand H&M has in collaboration with Danone AQUA, Indonesia’s number one water bottled brand turned PET plastic into colorful and comfortable kids wear.
The project ‘bottle2fashion’ initiated in September 2020 is a response to the Indonesian government to lessen ocean pollution as well as creating more jobs. Indonesia is on a mission to tackle its huge plastic pollution problem and aims to cut marine plastic waste by 70% in 2025.
From this initiative, locals collected more than 3.5 million PET plastic bottles on the islands of Indonesia, cleaned them, and crushed them into small pieces. The small pieces were then made into polyester fabric fibers and combined with organic cotton and other types of recycled cotton to create comfortable hoodies, jogger pants, and colorful long sleeve t-shirts for the bottle2fashion collection.
Nellie Lindborg, H&M sustainable manager says that with the project they want to be involved with cleaning the beaches and the oceans. The bottle2fashion project is an incorporation with other companies, as part of their initiative to move towards circular economy. The project aims to find alternatives to conventional polyester, which is also a kind of plastic, to make more sustainable and affordable clothes for kids and overall to improve the environment, the economy and the livelihood in Indonesia.
Ratih Anggraeni Senior of sustainable packaging development manager of Danone Indonesia said, “This collaboration with H&M this season let us to collect 71 tons of PET plastic bottles from Kepula-auan beach, Ceribu and Bandung. We are proud to be a dedicated assistant, to prevent more plastic bottles from reaches to the ocean and to be part of the #BijakBerplastik project”.
The collection is now available also in Thailand. Find more information here.
