A husband and wife team turn potential waste items, drink bottles, into truly green shirts.

According to the Container Recycling Institute, the number of beverage bottles and cans that have been landfilled, littered, or incinerated in the US in this year alone is almost 6 billion. Let me repeat that: Almost 6 billion beverage containers have been trashed so far this year. That's a lot of waste.

One company, 8bottles, is trying to make a dent in that figure by turning PET bottles into yarn, which is then knitted into shirts. The end result is a 100% post-consumer recycled shirt, and 8 less PET bottles going to the dump.

The bottles are first hand sorted and crushed into flakes, then turned into pellets, and finally extruded as yarn (well, if you can call old soda bottles yarn...). Next, the yarn is knitted into fabric, and the resulting material cut and sewn into polo shirts. Pretty cool, eh? But that's not all that's green in the 8bottles story.

There shirts completely free of virgin material, and the packaging and shipping materials are 100% post-consumer recycled content. Plus, by not using dyes, the company has reduced its carbon footprint and waste 80%!

Our products’ color comes from the original color of the bottles. Did you know that red dyes are the least environmentally friendly? Why dye? Recycled materials have built-in beauty. Even our packaging materials are undyed and unbleached, and have minimal printing. No toxins. The 100% recycled PET yarn used to make all the components in our garments has received Level 1 certification from Oeko-Tex, the world’s leading textile testing organization. That means it’s safe to be worn next to the skin by infants every day. We don’t make shirts for infants, but it’s nice to know that we could.

So instead of being dyed, the colors of the shirts come from the colors of the bottles! Each batch of shirts comes from the same batch of bottles, with a similar color to each, which adds to the uniqueness of the product.

If you're looking for a truly green shirt for your company or next event, contact 8bottles and see what they can do for you!

Connect with them at Facebook or on Twitter.

8bottles was founded by husband and wife team Robb and Lucy, when Robb’s stepdad, Jim, whose family runs a 100-year-old textile mill, introduced them to Alex, a manufacturing partner who figured out how to make high-quality yarn using only recycled bottles.