KARACHI – The recycled polyester of Pakistan conglomerate ICI Pakistan will be verified in a new partnership with textile traceability business, Fibertrace. ICI’s Terylene Clean recycled polyester, which is salvaged from post-consumer PET waste, will embed Fibretrace’s patented tracer technology at the raw material stage, to verify the presence of rPET fibres.
The issue of fake recycled polyester has become a growing concern for fashion brands and retailers. Rumours persist of virgin polyester being substituted for its recycled counterpart. Last year, an independent study found randomly selected garments from a range of high street fashion brands contained zero or very little recycled polyester – despite label claims to the contrary. This was after a patent-pending test method, deemed reliable by a leading German laboratory after blind trials, was used to examine ‘recycled polyester’ lines from several high street fashion brands.
Fibertrace’s technology uses a patented luminescent pigment that is embedded in raw fibres or at at yarn spinning and is traced, verified and audited at each step of the global textile supply chain. This is achieved via a proprietary handheld scanner that identifies and quantifies pigments in fibre, yarn, fabric and finished goods that send encrypted data into secure blockchain and software.
“ICI Pakistan Limited has partnered with FibreTrace to bring the much needed transparency in RPET fibre industry. With Terylene Clean, you can now trace sustainability from source to store to ensure brands are getting what they paid for,” said Nauman Shahid Afzal, vice president of Polyester Business at ICI Pakistan Limited.
To date, Terylene Clean has recycled more than 250 million PET bottles. By May 2022, they will have an additional production capacity, bringing the total recycled PET bottles to 1.2 billion every year.
ICI Pakistan Limited and Fibertrace formalised the partnership in a signing ceremony, held at the ICI Polyester Manufacturing site located in Sheikhupura, Pakistan. The session brought together all relevant stakeholders, including senior management from FibreTrace, ICI Pakistan Limited and WWF Pakistan, working to establish an system that promotes traceable rPET from Pakistan.