Do you know a company is actively working towards saving the environment? Meet ‘DGrade’, a Dubai based award winning company develops ‘Greenspun’ that manufactures high-quality yarn made from recycled plastic. Dgrade istaking the notion of recycled fashion forward by helping to remodel up-to 60% discarded plastic water bottles to turn them into clothes and enable its customers to participate in a circular economy.
It replaces traditional polyester yarn to develop and produce a wide range of sustainable fabrics for clothing and accessories. The clothing ranges from tshirts, shorts, cargo pants to waterproof and breathable jackets. It provides high-quality clothing to its customers made in a sustainable way. And Whereas on the other hand, DGrade gets the plastic bottles through its initiative ‘Simply Bottles’ and also ties up with many companies to help them recycle their plastic.
The functionality of recycled fashion
The bottles which are collected from the waste management companies in the Emirates go through a three-step manufacturing process that transforms the bottles from plastic to fabric and renders in saving the environment. Its fabric uses 20% less water, 50% less energy and leaves 55% less carbon emissions. And, each stage of their manufacturing process is both socially and ethically audited and environmentally certified.
Whereas, Its 4000 square metre factory which is located at Kizad, Abu Dhabi has the capacity to recycle 1 billion plastic bottles a year. The factory is built in such a way that recycles polyethylene terephthalate to meet the increasing demand of sustainable clothing and recycled packaging. Moreover, it processes up-to 3,000 kilograms of plastic per hour.
And by using a state of the art technology from Tomra and BoreTech ‘DGrade’ first mangle the plastic, hot wash it and then separate it into PET and HDPE flakes, whereas some of its flakes are also melted into pellets and sold off to companies to make recycled bottles. Moreover, during the recycling process their custom built water treatment system recycles water up-to 85%.
Is it easy to get plastic?
No! It is simply not an easy task to get plastic as for the company it requires 1,500 tons of plastic a month which is roughly equals to 50,000 bottles. And convincing people to set apart the plastic is one of the real challenges the corporation has ever confronted.
Tie-ups
In 2017, DGrade organised the ‘Simply Bottles’ program where they worked with 200 schools and children, who helped them in collecting bottles from their own houses and schools that converted the collection into millions and the program turned out to be a success. They also work with various industries, hotels, water companies and even with small businesses to get their employees involved in the mission of saving the environment.
Furthermore, DGrade is also working with the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency to spread awareness and have a federal strategic collection scheme that will reward the customers with points and vouchers, cashback if they dump plastic into a machine.
