Our wraps used to be plastic bottles! But how is RPET fabric made?

This month, Wrapuccino has launched the introduction of our new RPET Furoshiki line. This means that you can now wrap your gifts (or wrap pretty much anything really), using a fabric itself has been created using reused materials. But, we’re sure you’re wondering…

What is RPET?

RPET stands for recycled polyethylene terephthalate. What this means is that anything made with RPET, was once a plastic water bottle, a plastic cup, a plastic anything! But instead of these plastics being thrown into the ocean or contributing to the never ceasing landfills, we take them, do a little environmental abracadabra, and voila, you have you’re your reused reusable Furoshiki.

How does RPET work?

To save these plastic items from entering our oceans, we:

1. Collect them via local councils and private companies.

2. Then bind them together into cube shaped using a process called “bales” so they can be easily transported to their next destination which is called the sorting plant.

3. Use sorting machines to break the bales down and to remove any materials which have ended up in our recycling load which shouldn’t have. We remove these because they can reduce the quality of the final Furoshiki product!

4. Eventually sort the plastic colours, reduce them to tiny flake sized shapes, and give them a mighty clean.

5. Dry, stretch and chop them into tiny pieces known as PET palettes.

6. Finally pass our PET palettes through a “spinnerate”, which rebirths our plastics into yarn (by heating and stretching them into thin fibres). We then smooth and stretch and reel the new polyester, giving you a new fabric ready for design.

Why is RPET so important for the environment?

Well, as the planet is learning (the extremely hard way and destructive), when we don’t find multiple uses for the plastic products we use, the thrown away plastic:

· Causes the direct death of more than 1 million sea birds and 100,000 marine animals via plastic pollution every year.

· Ends up in the stomachs of 100% of our planets baby sea turtles.

· Contributes to the 1 million plastic bags which end up in the bin every minute.

Also, the energy it takes produce 1.5 million tons of plastic could power 250,000 homes – Just for this same plastic to be used once and immediately thrown away, demanding the production of more plastic. It’s a nuclear nightmare.