Recycled Polyester (rPET)

Recycled polyester (rPET) is made by collecting post-consumer plastic — mostly clear PET beverage bottles — shredding it into flake, melting it down, and re-extruding it into new polyester filament that performs almost identically to virgin polyester in strength, wicking, and colorfastness. Depending on the process, it typically takes somewhere around 30-40 plastic bottles to yield enough fiber for one adult tee's worth of rPET fabric, though the exact figure shifts with weight and blend ratio.

This is the fiber behind most "eco performance" merch — brands like Allmade and Next Level's recycled-poly tees lean on rPET to hit a sustainability claim without giving up the wicking and quick-dry properties a gym or race tee needs. We've had teams request 100% rPET jerseys purely so the sideline banner could say the shirts were made from recycled bottles; the performance spec is identical to virgin poly, and the story is the whole point of the order.

Look for Global Recycled Standard (GRS) certification if a client needs the recycled-content claim to hold up on a hang-tag or ESG report — a self-declared "recycled" fabric without a GRS or Recycled Claim Standard number is a soft claim some buyers will push back on. Recycled-poly cotton blends trade a little pure wicking performance for a softer hand, worth it for lifestyle merch but not for competitive athletic wear.

Performance-wise, rPET and virgin polyester are the same fiber chemically, so buyers who worry recycled poly will wick or dye differently are solving a problem that doesn't exist — the dye-migration risk under plastisol ink is identical either way, since rPET is just reclaimed plastic run through the same extrusion process as new petroleum feedstock.