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Until two years ago, Roshan Baid didn't know that eight PET bottles of soda could be turned into a sports T-shirt.

Since 2001, his company Paragon Apparels has been producing sportswear for international brands such as Reebok and Adidas. But it wasn't until 2016 that the 46-year-old National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) graduate thought of using plastic. So he established a sub-brand, Alcis Sports.

Today, as many as 50% of Alcis's entire clothing collection is made from recycled plastic PET bottles. The company produces more than 4,000 pieces of these garments per day and sells more than 50,000 pieces per month. In 2017, the brand's turnover was 250 million rupees (250 million US dollars); Baid hopes to end in 2018 by more than twice this number.

Paragon's three factories in Noida near New Delhi and three factories in Unna, Himachal Pradesh have a total annual production capacity of 9 million pieces. Alcis Sports retails its products through 150 outlets in Globus, Shoppers Stop, Sports Station and Central.

"We are already operating in more than 700 retail stores in India. We are also considering reaching secondary and tertiary towns. We also have specialty stores in five cities: Kochi, Guwahati, Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur ," Bader told Quartz.

As an authorized manufacturer of clothing products for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Alcis received US$4 million in funding from Singapore RB Investments in April 2017. It is now looking for expansion funds of up to Rs 600 crore.

After graduating from NIFT in 1995, Baid worked for several clothing manufacturers for several years. Dealing regularly with suppliers and distributors, he is puzzled by the unorganized nature of the industry.

In 2001, a chance meeting with a friend who had worked with Reebok prompted him to produce sportswear in India. He used his savings to invest in machinery and equipment. Paragon Apparels with 10 machines was born.

However, Bader has always been troubled by frequent reports that water bodies, cities, and oceans are filled with plastic. For example, according to data from the research organization Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India alone generates more than 15,342 tons of plastic waste per day (pdf). According to data from the Ministry of Oil and Gas, the country’s annual per capita plastic consumption is estimated to be 20 kg by 2022.

So Baid decided to switch to more sustainable yarns than polyester. The answer lies in recycling plastic.

"For a country that produces a lot of plastic waste, this is an attractive idea, and banning it is not very effective," Bader said.

This trend has become very popular in mature markets such as the United States and the United Kingdom, followed by well-known brands such as Adidas and Nike.

Baid began to explore and plans to make 90% of its clothing collections made of recycled plastic within the next two years.

India produced approximately 1,500 kilotons of PET in 2015-2016, up from 982 kilotons in 2014-15. According to data from the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), recycling all these materials can generate more than 3,000 crore revenue per year. NCL director Ashwini Kumar Nangia said that although recycling PET bottles to make clothes is an emerging business in India, it is gradually starting to parallel textiles.

"R-PET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate) is a strong, durable and recyclable material used in soda bottles, water bottles, and food cans. It is an environmentally friendly, economical and safe product. The performance is also better than polyester," Baide said.

Generally, sportswear is made of polyester, which is a man-made fiber that ensures elasticity. But the production of polyester is harmful to the environment. It consumes large amounts of water, chemicals and fossil fuels and their residues. In addition, its by-products are toxic.

On the other hand, clothing made of recycled plastics reduces carbon emissions by more than 54% and reduces energy consumption by 50%; Baid said they can also save 27 liters of water per piece, and their performance is better than 100% pure polyester.

However, the task of switching to recycled plastics is not so easy.

"There are places where plastic can be recycled, but these places are used for crude oil in industry. Making clothes from plastic requires finer yarns," Baide explained.

Although the United States and the United Kingdom have organized plastic collection systems for recycling, in India, traditional scavengers are engaged in this work. So Alcis started using this network to purchase raw materials and melted them into spun yarn in a small factory in Mumbai. This yarn was then used to spin sportswear, including T-shirts, jackets and backpacks.

The company's technology makes the garment breathable, sweat-proof, and odor-resistant. It also ensures that it is very lightweight, weighing only 86 grams per piece on average.

But in the long run, making clothes from recycled plastic may do more harm than good.

“When you wash clothes made of recycled plastic or any other synthetic garments, it sheds a lot of plastic microfibers that cannot be detected by washing machine filters. Even sewage treatment plants cannot catch it,” San Baba, California Said Mark Browne, an ecologist and post-doctoral researcher at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Latin America. Browne has been studying plastic pollution for ten years.

It is estimated that the 500,000 tons of plastic microfibers that fall off during the washing process, equivalent to more than 50 billion plastic bottles, will eventually flow into the ocean and eventually enter the food chain.

So Baide is now focusing on recycling clothes made from recycled plastic, and even collecting plastic waste from the Himalayas.

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