Most football jerseys in 2022 are made with plastic materials. This is perhaps not a problem in itself but isn’t ideal given the scale of jerseys sold globally. Where do they all end up? Are the shirts handed down? Reused? Recycled? There are lots of questions we can’t answer here.
But a recent innovation in jersey design is helping.
See, the washing of jerseys in homes around the world is said to shed microplastics into our water waste. Microplastics are tiny plastic particles (less than 5mm in diameter). “Micro” hardly sounds problematic either, but the issue with these plastics is that they don’t readily break down – like plastics of any size really.
Indeed, National Geographic says plastics can take hundreds or thousands of years to decompose and “in the meantime, wreak havoc on the environment.”
Tackling the problem with recycled shirts
Some football clubs are trying to combat this trend by using recycled plastics, and in particular, ocean plastics. Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are two such clubs who in recent seasons started selling jerseys made of “Primeblue”, a recycled material from Adidas that’s created with Parley Ocean Plastic.
Sounds great, but what is Parley Ocean Plastic? Parley for the Oceans is an environmental organization that works with other groups to collects plastic waste from beaches and shores before it’s spun into a thread that can be used in clothing.
A number of new football jerseys are made from this recycled material. For example, the all-white Real Madrid and all-red Bayern Munich kits are made from plastic originally intercepted by Parley clean-up operations in coastal areas of the Maldives.
There’s a broader message behind this focused effort. Parley highlights humanity’s growing disconnect from nature and overconsumption of resources, which in turn impacts global warming, ocean acidification, overfishing and agricultural run-off.
Ultimately, Parley calls into question the ongoing legitimacy of traditional plastic and has imagined new ways of designing football kits.
Big goals but worthwhile
An estimated 8 million metrics tonnes of plastic trash ends up in our oceans every year – and the plastics gather. The sea currents have formed five gigantic slow moving whirlpools called gyres, where the plastic debris sinks or remains in the vortex. However, a significant amount still washes onto shore. Recent studies show that at least 5 trillion pieces of plastic waste are now floating in our oceans, as per a report published in the Plos One journal.
These new football jerseys don’t solve this trillion-piece problem, but it’s a step in the right direction.
The Soccer Pitch Is Green 