Production of Sports T-Shirts from Pet Bottles to Reduce Pollution in the Parish of Nayón, Quito

Abstract

Plastic as a polluting material takes about 100 to 500 years to decompose. Each fragment of plastic severely pollutes the environment and causes serious damage to the underwater flora and fauna. About 8 million tons of plastic garbage is generated every year, causing an alarming need for developing alternative use for the plastic garbage – such as the use of plastic fibers for the production of sports t-shirts. We analyze the current situation of plastic pollution in the city of Quito, in the Nayón Parish, to highlight the critical issue and the need for projects that resolve it. A mixed approach was applied to collect necessary and timely information and to analyze and interpret qualitative and quantitative data, emphasizing the description of the research problem, among other techniques and tools. Knowing that the city of Quito produces 112,420 tons of annual plastic garbage, which means 308 tons of plastic per day, it can be determined that PET bottles are a material that can be recycled, and usable fabric can be obtained from them for the creation of sports t-shirts, thus helping to minimize the environmental impact.

Keywords

• plastic, pollution, sports shirt, quito.