Coloreel's New Embroidery Thread Is Made From 100% Recycled Plastic Bottles

Recycling is the name of the game in Coloreel’s latest efforts to keep with its mission of providing more sustainable embroidery methods. The group, a Swedish textile innovation brand with a proprietary technology for embroidery enabling high-quality coloring of textile thread on demand, announced that it will begin offering 100% recycled polyester embroidery thread to be used with its instant thread coloring technologies.

The polyester is created from 100% recycled post-consumer PET bottles and developed in collaboration with thread manufacturer Madeira. Coloreel notes that the thread has passed all industry-standard quality testing and is certified Standard 100 by Oeko-Tex. Not only that, but the cone is made from recycled plastics and will be packaged and shipped in recycled boxes.

In offering this thread, Coloreel hopes to spark a ripple effect.

“This provides our customers with a more sustainable embroidery alternative and solves the problem with lack of availability of recycled polyester thread in a large variety of colors,” Torbjörn Bäck, CEO of Coloreel Group, told Sourcing Journal.

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We've seen a few similar sustainability efforts on the decoration side lately. The apparel brand Pangaia recently started implementing what it calls "Air-Ink," a screen printing ink made by capturing particles emitted during industrial manufacturing. Other companies are experimenting with dyes made from algae or avocado pits.

Offering 100% recycled polyester thread is just one part of what Coloreel is doing in its sustainability mission. As a whole, the textile industry has struggled to implement green practices in both manufacturing and production. The brand hopes to help spur change by encouraging the industry to move toward more sustainable production. It states that coloring thread directly eliminates wastewater and doesn’t pollute water. In addition, using a single reel of thread and needle also minimizes thread waste and microfiber pollution.

For those that offer embroidery services and want to join Coloreel in its sustainability endeavors, the recycled thread will be sold in sets of 6x10 kilometer thread reels. Visit www.coloreel.com for more information.