Football Shirt Production: What is the impact and how might this be mitigated?
Footballing heritage runs deep across the world. Major events such as the Champions League Final and this year’s World Cup bring high levels of publicity to the world of elite football. Football fan culture is massive and crosses generational, societal, and geographical bridges. By extension, football merchandise is a massive market, and the environmental impact of the production of goods like football shirts is significant.
Footballing heritage runs deep across the world. Major events such as the Champions League Final and this year’s World Cup bring high levels of publicity to the world of elite football. Football fan culture is massive and crosses generational, societal, and geographical bridges. By extension, football merchandise is a massive market, and the environmental impact of the production of goods like football shirts is significant.
FIFA estimates[1] that there are 3.5 billion football fans worldwide, and the football shirt industry is colossal – with elite clubs selling millions of shirts a year (examples[2] being Bayern Munich – 3,250,000, Real Madrid – 3,050,000, and Manchester United – 1,945,000). This is a particularly common purchase in the run-up to major footballing events such as the Champions League Final, which has enjoyed viewing figures of up to 400 million people[3]. But what is the environmental impact of the production of these shirts, and how can this be reduced?
Football shirts are generally made from polyester. It is cheaper[4], more versatile, more durable and more ‘wicking’ (absorbent) than cotton or wool, making it an attractive choice for sportswear. Its raw materials are plastic-based and it can be mass-produced relatively easily.
However, while polyester may be the more convenient option, it is not without serious environmental impact. Once the plastic is formed into fibres, it has to be coloured and weaved into shape and structure. The weaving part of the process[5] uses the same chemicals, dyeing agents, finishing chemicals, and softeners as other textile production does, all of which contributes to the contamination of wastewater.
While recycled polyester is sometimes used, even this presents a problem. The base colour of the recycled polyester yarn ranges from off-white to yellow. As it is difficult to achieve consistency for pale shades, to make it a clean white, chlorine-based bleach is used. The fabric is then dyed and re-dyed several times, which consumes a lot of water. In fact, recycled yarns consume 30% more dye to achieve the same shade of new fibres[6].
The result of these processes is that masses of water is used in the production process and the wastewater is contaminated by toxic chemicals before being dumped into the local water system. This is disastrous not only for the water system itself, but also for the communities that rely on it.
There have been a range of solutions aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the football shirt industry. Many of the major football teams, for example, now use kits made from recycled plastic such as water bottles. Nike has recently regularly produced kits in this way, notably for Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur[7]. Nike has so far diverted 1 billion plastic bottles[8] away from landfill sites.
However, plastic bottles are usually part of a well-established, closed-loop recycling system, where they can be efficiently recycled as bottles at least 10 times[9]. Manufacturing football shirts from bottles is taking from this closed-loop and moving it into a linear system, because most of those clothes won’t be recycled. Converting plastic from bottles into clothes may accelerate its path to the landfill[10]. Therefore, perhaps football shirts made from plastic bottles are not necessarily the ‘game-changer’ that is required.
There have also been various other one-off ways that football kits have been produced; for example, Forest Green Rovers have produced a kit out of coffee beans[11]. However, these are not necessarily a feasible alternative for the major clubs that need to produce millions of shirts.
A more realistic and effective solution is being developed by Waste2Fresh. With funding from the EU, and in collaboration with European partner organisations, Waste2Fresh are developing a closed-loop water system that prevents water that is full of toxic chemicals and dyes from being released into water systems. The water is instead filtered and reused by the manufacturers themselves. This reduces the release of dyes and chemicals used in the polyester shirt production process into the environment.
Another important aspect is that polyester production leads to the accumulation of solid materials in the wastewater – Waste2Fresh’s filtration system would filter this out.
Perhaps the most important factor, however, is that water would be recycled by polyester production facilities. This could play a vital part in reducing the massive water consumption that is a default in the textile industry. The facilities would now be able to recycle water used and put it straight back into the polyester production process. This is particularly important for recycled polyester because, as noted above, much more dye is needed to colour it, and therefore more water.
As companies fall under more and more pressure to act sustainably and carry out significant reforms of their processes, it is likely that football clubs will be looking at ways to make football shirt production ‘greener’. The next decade will be a transformative one for the textile industry, and football clubs will want to use production facilities that have a sustainable outlook and process. Waste2Fresh could well be a vital step in this process of making polyester production more environmentally friendly.
[1] https://www.allianz.com/en/about-us/sports-culture/football/allianz-football.html#:~:text=FIFA%20estimates%20that%20a%20staggering,in%20new%20regions%20every%20year.
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1118294/football-shirt-sales-by-club/
[3] https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/super-bowl-vs-world-cup-champions-league-viewing-figures/blte47db8809dbd0a6d
[4] https://silverbobbin.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-polyester/
[5] https://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/4661/textile-wastewater-can-make-a-difference
[6] https://shopvirtueandvice.com/blogs/conscious-shopping/recycled-polyester-fabric
[7] https://www.nspackaging.com/news/football-kit-recycled-plastic/
[8] https://www.designboom.com/design/nike-inter-milan-2021-kits-football-carbon-recycled-plastic-bottle-07-26-2021/
[9] http://microdyneplastics.com/2018/02/hdpe-can-recycled-least-10-times/
[10] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/06/clothes-made-from-recycled-materials-sustainable-plastic-climate
[11] https://www.fgr.co.uk/news/spill-the-beans-on-coffee-waste-kit