What is EcoKit?

We want to play our part to help protect the planet – from the 2022/23 season we will be offering all clubs EcoKit by Hope & Glory – our Eco friendly bespoke kits.

These kits are a part of our commitment to a sustainable future, making football kits using rPET (Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate) with a lower environmental impact. Both the shirt and shorts are made from rPET fabric, which is made from recycled plastic bottles that have been melted down to produce a fine yarn (see the full process below).

Every shirt is manufactured using a piece of fabric made from the equivalent of approximately 16 plastic bottles. Our EcoKit material behaves in the same way virgin polyester would meaning no difference in performance from our standard kits – if anything the EcoKit fabric has a more premium feel, smoother to the touch and slightly lighter.

rPET vs PET

rPET is made by a mechanical process, virgin polyester is made by chemical process.

rPET produces up to 65% less carbon footprint to virgin polyester, and 12% less than cotton.

rPET requires 90% less water to produce than virgin polyester.

rPET uses 70% less energy than used to make virgin polyester.

Virgin polyester is made using crude oil, obviously rPET isn’t! So saving on fossil fuels too!

The EcoKit (rPET) Process

Why EcoKit?

When purchasing a plastic bottle – water, your favorite fizzy pop, juice – you have probably only ever spent about ten minutes with it. Buy it, drink it, throw it away – that is the usual cycle. On the rare occasion you might keep hold of the bottle and re fill it and take it to work or the gym – increasing your relationship with the bottle to a couple of days rather than minutes.

But the lifespan of a plastic bottle isn’t only ten minutes, a couple of days, or even a couple of years. Since plastic bottles became a popular option in the 1950s, virtually every piece of plastic ever made still exists in some shape or form — unless it’s been incinerated.

Basically, even though you only spent ten minutes with it, that water bottle will outlive you, your children, and your children’s children and so on as it decomposes over the next 400+ years.

The facts are a little more shocking when you take into account that around the world roughly one million bottles are purchased every minute. It is also estimated that this year over half a trillion plastic bottles will be sold.

Sadly, unless recycled, these plastic bottles end up in landfill or in our oceans.

Shop our EcoKit range

View all