Garbage pret-a-porter

In the world of the future, the concept of waste will disappear

Many of the world's best football players who have come to South Africa to play in the World Cup wear jerseys made almost entirely from plastic bottles collected from landfills in Japan and Taiwan. At the very least it provides good publicity...

Many of the world's best football players who have come to South Africa to play in the World Cup wear jerseys made almost entirely from plastic bottles collected from landfills in Japan and Taiwan.

At a minimum, this provides good publicity for Nike, the jersey supplier and official sponsor of nine national teams, including teams from the USA, Brazil and Portugal.

However, this is not only and not so much another publicity stunt, but part of Nike's increasing efforts to introduce sustainable products into production. An increasing number of manufacturers around the world are incorporating recyclable or naturally degradable components into their technologies.

Among the companies participating in this movement, one can find manufacturers of furniture and carpets, clothes and shampoos, household chemicals, etc. The largest retail chains, such as Wal-Mart, do not lag behind them. Eco-friendly products are no longer reserved for expensive brands like Nike sportswear or Herman Miller furniture, analysts say.

According to a Penn Schoen Berland Associates survey of 1,000 shoppers, US consumers spent roughly $500 billion on green goods in 2008 alone, more than double what they spent a year ago.

This is still a new phenomenon that is quite difficult to trace, and the companies involved use various names they have coined to refer to it: “eco-efficiency”, “improved cycle of use”, “full-cycle products”, etc.

In its extreme, one might even say, utopian form, these names mean products only from natural raw materials, fully recyclable, or completely decomposing in a natural way and not falling into a landfill.

A more practical approach is to reduce the cost of production in the first place - by reducing waste, selling waste for recycling, using rubber and plastic waste to produce new products. For large companies, this can mean millions of dollars in additional revenue each year.

“When they first started talking about sustainability, it was mostly about the moral responsibility of companies,” says Beth Lester, vice president of Penn Schoen Berland Associates. “Now they are looking at sustainable production methods in terms of economic benefits.”

For example, Wal-Mart earned more than $100 million in 2009 just by using new, recyclable cardboard packaging to ship items to its more than 4,300 stores in the United States. Instead of having to pay to ship used carton to landfills, Wal-Mart now sells it.

The company also sells photo frames made from recycled polystyrene and uses plastic waste from baby diapers to make material used in the construction of new stores.

The largest project to date, launched by Wal-Mart after surveying more than 100,000 manufacturers worldwide, is to label all products within a year with information about what raw materials they are made from and how they can be recycled.

Nike pioneered sustainability in 1993 by recycling old shoes into material that it gave away for free to builders of new sports fields, treadmills and courts.

This program is still in operation, but now the company is focusing not on one-time projects, but on long-term programs "to reduce and completely stop the production of substances that damage the state of biological and ecological systems."

Over the past four years, Nike's sustainable design department, known as Nike Considered Design, has brought to market athletic shoes and apparel made from industrial waste and less toxic rubbers.

Some Nike models use zippers and laces made from recycled old shoes.

In addition, the company has reduced the use of solvents and toxic adhesives in the soles.

“Customers expect us to do this,” says Nike's Considered general manager Lori Vogel. “We are not talking about two or three models of eco-friendly shoes, but about all the products of our company.”