Recycled polyester

Filled, drunk and thrown away, plastic bottles are coming back from trash to treasure.

Some of Lush’s Knot Wraps are made of recycled polyester. Simply put, polyester is a type of plastic mainly used in fashion as it can be transformed into fibres and woven into very resistant fabrics of different styles and feels. New polyester fibres are created from petrochemicals every day, even though the technology exists to produce them from the abysmal quantities of plastic waste humanity relentlessly generates.

To make recycled polyester, plastic drink bottles are washed and cut into pieces. The chips are then melted through a spinneret, a device that looks like a showerhead and allows polyester to flow out as yarn. This yarn is then woven into cloth. From the launch in 2010 to December 2022, the equivalent of over six million 500ml plastic bottles have been recycled to make our Knot Wraps. A 47cm Knot Wrap uses one bottle, 70cm needs two and 100cm uses six!