Kenyan Marathon Champion Abel Kirui To Wear Environmentally Friendly Nike Uniform
Marathon Singlet Made of Recycled Bottles, Dyed without water
Kenyan marathon world champion Abel Kirui will take his place at the start line this Sunday in a unique Nike uniform that combines high performance with environmentally sustainable design.
The Kenya singlet he will wear is made from recycled fabric that comes from the equivalent of three recycled plastic bottles. To make the fabric, bottles are ground into flakes, melted and then spun into special thread. All of the Track & Field uniforms for Nike sponsored federations have also been created using this technique. On average, textile dyeing uses an estimated 100-150 liters of water to process 1 kg of textile material.
Color has been added to the Kenyan singlet using an innovative water-free dye process. Earlier this year, Nike announced a strategic parternship with DyeCoo, a Netherlands-based company that has developed and built the first commercially available waterless textile dyeing machines. By using recycled carbon dioxide, DyeCoo’s technology eliminates the use of water in the textile dyeing process. Nike has been exploring this technology for the past eight years and aims to scale the technology for larger production volumes in the future.