The Korean national soccer team made an astonishing achievement of advancing to the second round of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Moreover, the SK Wyverns beat the Lotte and Kia teams by a large margin twice at the environment-friendly game, called ‘Green Day,’ held this past May and June.
A hidden contribution to the victories of both games is none other than uniforms made from recycling plastic bottles.
It kept players in their best condition by quickly absorbing and drying the flow of perspiration throughout the game and improved players’ athletic performance because it was 15% lighter than before.
‘Ecoever,’ a recycled yarn made from plastic bottles, is being produced and supplied to the SK Wyverns and Nike, the sponsor of the Korean national soccer team, by Huvis (www.huvis.com / CEO Seong Hwan Mun), the nation’s largest polyester company.
Because ‘Ecoever,’ is a yarn produced from collecting plastic bottles, it is an environment-friendly yarn that decreases the amount of trash in landfills and reduces carbon dioxide emissions and use of oil resources. Because Samyang Corporation, the parent company of Huvis, collects disposed plastic bottles and provides the raw materials while Huvis produces the yarn, integrated quality management is possible. Huvis was exclusively awarded the environment-friendly fiber label from Korea’s Ministry of Environment and was certified as Nike’s official yarn supply vendor.
Recently, Huvis was awarded the GRS (Global Recycle Standard) from the Control Union World Group, the Dutch environment-friendly certificate authority. Other Korean companies that produce recycled yarns have been awarded the GRS, but the difference is that Huvis is the only one that has received the GRS certification for their raw materials, chips, in addition to their yarn. The company received high evaluations because it does not produce just yarn from imported recycled chips, but collects and produces chips directly through their manufacturing process.
Because of this, the company has direct influence on increasing the importance of the nation’s recycling of plastic bottles.
Discarded plastic bottles become finely cut flakes after being collected and cleansed. When they are moved into the manufacturing process for raw material chips, the most important thing is the level of purity of the raw materials. Removing impurities from the plastic bottle flakes influences the quality of the yarn. In Korea, Huvis exclusively holds the technology to produce recycled chips.
GRS is a global standard to mark the contents of recycled fibers of each process, from raw materials of fiber, yarns, and fabrics to the final product. It is a major criterion for famous international brands in selecting the suppliers for recycled materials.
Huvis’ FY Operations director, Man Gyu Kim stated, “The quality of recycled chips, in addition our yarn, is being recognized and inquiries and demands from international brands for our yarn is increasing. Its application range will be greatly expanded from casual clothes to outdoor sports apparel because of its quality reorganization as World Cup uniforms.”