A rugby shirt made from 13 plastic bottles

Ange Capuozzo, renamed the Blue Angel, in recent days was elected “world rugby revelation of the year”: a phenomenon of 1.77 centimeters in height, 71 kilos in weight and … 13 used plastic bottles. Like all the players of the Italian national team – also from Scotland and Wales, just to stay in the prestigious Six Nations Tournament -, the extreme young man wears sportswear produced by a Bolognese company, Macron – one of the best-known brands in the world, European leader in rugby – which has made environmental sustainability one of the company’s missions.

Macron has been married for two years a new ‘green’ technology for the production of its jerseys, worn by thousands of high-level and non-level players. The fabric is called Eco Fabric, the yarn is 100% recycled polyester. It is obtained by reusing materials such as plastic containers. Pet – an acronym that stands for polyethylene terephthalate (a thermoplastic polymer) -, collected after use, is first reduced into chips about 2 millimeters in size and subsequently treated to obtain a yarn that guarantees the same performance as non-recycled yarn . For a highly technical game shirt – like Capuozzo’s, in fact – 13 plastic bottles of half a liter each are enough.

Macron had made his debut in 2020 with one of the most famous and loved clubs in France, the Section Paloise Bearn Pyrenees. It was an immediate success, and the winning choice has become the common denominator of most of the partnerships with teams and rugby federations that have chosen to adopt the Eco Fabric. “We had decided some time ago to be an active part of a necessary change,” he explains Gianluca Pavanello, managing director of the Bologna-based company. “A mission in which we strongly believe, and which sees us committed and stimulated every day. We have transformed this awareness into a positive force, creating responsible business, developing practices aimed at the use of renewable energies, the recycling and regeneration of materials, avoiding waste and setting our production processes to the criterion of sustainability. For us, this is being part of the change”.

In rugby, the new ‘green’ jerseys have been adopted by World Rugby, the organization that manages the world oval movement, from Italy, Wales and Scotland, then again from Georgia, Romania, Germany, Portugal, Canada, Luxembourg, and then again from important clubs such as Bath, Newcastle, Northampton, Sale, Glasgow Warriors , Edinburgh, Biarritz, Lyon, Clermont Ferrand, the Australian Parramatta Eels, the Japanese Shizuoka BlueRevs, the South African Lions. “As a company, we have an obligation to work constantly to make conscious use of the resources that the planet offers us”, continues Pavanello. “The goal is always to make high quality products with minimal environmental impact”. They renamed it ‘Macron 4 the Planet’: “It is our ‘contract’ signed towards nature, society and our end users. A choice that we share with the clubs and which takes the form of the production of ‘Eco-Fabric’ shirts, high-quality garments designed to last over time while maintaining their technical characteristics unaltered”.