In recent weeks there has been a big push in the kayaking world to try and clean up our rivers, banks and environment from plastic, and this is long overdue! Recent efforts to promote the reduction in plastic waist polluting the world we live in have included the Hurley Classic going single use plastic free, Sian Sykes from Psyched Paddleboarding paddling around Wales to collect plastic and raise some money, and even recycled plastic kayaks beginning to be made!
However, did you know that here at Peak UK we have been using recycled fabric for a long time! Since 2013 we have used a recycled polyester fabric to make a number of our jackets. This recycled fabric is very waterproof, holding out over 10 metres water! This makes it an ideal fabric to make our tourlite range with, as well as our semi pants, the new bags H2O shorts, and some of our custom kit!
So what is a recycled polyester fabric? Well it the exact same as your normal polyester that you find in many kayaking products, day to day clothes and many many other items. However, instead of creating new plastic materials from chemicals it recycles already used plastic. This plastic can come from a wide range of sources, but the most common one is single use plastic drinking bottles. So they turn your used coke bottle into a polyester fabric which we then turn into a lovely jacket, pants or shorts! You could be wearing one of the old bottles you used and threw into a recycling bin, how cool is that!
This process not only makes use of all the discarded plastic, saving it from landfill, but it also uses a lot less energy than creating new polyester does! In fact, it is claimed that this recycled material only uses 30% of the energy that new polyester does! So a double whammy there, recycling old bottles and using way less energy from fossil fuels!
Just look out for our recycled logo on our products, and show everyone how green you are being by getting yourself a green tourlite jacket!
Words - James IbbotsonPictures - Peak UK & Psyched Paddleboarding
