Eco Spindles leads way in plastic recycling spinning 90mn PET bottles to yarn each year

Sri Lanka’s largest plastic recycler, Eco Spindles, presents a sustainable solution to managing plastic waste by recycling plastic bottles directly into yarn or monofilaments. 

Recycled PET plastic is then used to knit fabric, or as fiber in brushes and brooms.Eco Spindles’ recycling facility converts over 90 million PET plastic bottles to yarn directly in a year. It is one of two plants globally capable of manufacturing yarn directly from PET plastic flakes. This process is known to reduce the use of energy, greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption during conversion. 

A wholly-owned subsidiary of BPPL Holdings PLC, Eco Spindles has embraced innovative technologies in yarn manufacturing to ensure a sustainable future for the apparel industry by creating the world’s first commercially available flake to POY (Partially Oriented Yarn) facility.

According to the International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering, in 2021, the expected consumption of PET plastic bottles will increase to 583.3 billion worldwide, highlightingthat recycling and adding value to the 
bottles is essential. 

“Typically, a PET plastic bottle would take over 1,000 years to degrade in the natural environment. If we were to recycle this plastic bottle into a garment, it would take less than 100 years to degrade fully. We can remove over 900 years in degradation timeif we responsibly dispose of and recycle plastic. We use recycled plastic to create yarn. Our six signature products are EcosGreen, Ecos Evolve, Ecos Oceanic, Ecos Shield, Ecos Amy, and Ecos Chroma,” stated Nalaka Seneviratne, CEO of EcoSpindles Yarns. 

“We have the technology to eliminate the polymer chip manufacturing process, which is used in ordinary polyester manufacturing. We do this by directly converting the flake into POY yarn. There is a huge amount of energy involved in the conversion process, which is eliminated. I am proud to say thatour PET recycling process ensures the lowest carbon footprint globally, which is the basis for creating the ‘Ecos Green’ product. The five other yarn products are an extension of this,” elaborated Seneviratne. 

The company also noted that ‘Ecos Evolve’ is the world’s most sustainable product in recycled polyester. Green and brown PET bottles are recycled where the natural colour of the bottle is used instead of adding colour in the dying chemical process to manufacture this type of yarn.