BELLA+CANVAS (asi/39590) has launched a new T-shirt made from 100% recycled materials.

The EcoMax tee (3001ECO) is made by combining pre-consumer scraps of Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton from its Los Angeles cutting facility with dope-dyed polyester from recycled post-consumer PET plastic bottles. Dope-dyeing, also known as solution dyeing, is considered a more environmentally friendly method of coloring fabric than conventional methods, since color is added to synthetic fibers before they’re spun into yarn without requiring intensive water use.

“By injecting dye directly into our melted, recycled plastic (polyester), and using our previously dyed Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton scraps, we are able to weave a colored yarn without the use of water, conserving valuable resources,” BELLA+CANVAS notes on its website.

The EcoMax tee (3001ECO) from BELLA+CANVAS is made from 100% recycled materials.

Conventional textile dyeing uses anywhere from 25 to 40 gallons of water per two pounds of fabric, and oftentimes the chemicals used in the process are discharged into the environment. Up to 20% of water pollution is the result of dyeing and treatment of textiles, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Textiles Economy report.

Made of 35% recycled cotton and 65% rPET, the EcoMax tee is available in white, black and navy.

Watch how BELLA+CANVAS makes its new EcoMax tee.

BELLA+CANVAS notes that the new products is “about repurposing waste into something new, rethinking the way we make things and re-establishing our relationship with what we wear.”

According to the supplier, scrap cotton from a single 3001 T-shirt – BELLA+CANVAS’s most popular style – provides enough recycled cotton for roughly two EcoMax tees. Roughly seven PET bottles are kept out of landfills for every EcoMax tee produced, the supplier notes.

Using recycled materials to create apparel is becoming more common in the promotional products industry. In 2020, Top 40 supplier SanMar (asi/84863) launched its District Re-Tee made of 100% recycled cotton and recycled polyester. Everywhere Apparel (asi/53059) uses a closed-loop production system to create basics made from 100% recycled cotton. Recover Brands, a division of NG Labs, which also owns Boxercraft (asi/41325), offers apparel made from 100% recycled polyester and cotton. Fairweather Johnson, a private-label brand available through Single PO Solutions (asi/87456), also has basics in a range of colors made from a mix of recycled cotton and recycled polyester.

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