It takes plastic bottles and other industrial wastes to make the recycled polyester fibre Repreve, which in turn is used as the fabric for car seats in the all new Ford Focus Electric car. Repreve is manufactured by Unifi, one of the world’s leading environmentally sustainable fabric manufacturers.
ford uses recycled plastic bottles for the seats in the new ford Focus Electric
The Ford Focus Electric is made of sustainable materials intended to cut down on waste. Thus using the Repreve was a natural choice of recycled material. According to Unifi, a single Ford Focus Electric car uses 22 plastic water bottles of 16 Oz capacity for its car seats. The car is electrically powered and has zero carbon emissions, which is very much in line with the environmentally green concept.
As part of its 2009 mandate to its fabric suppliers to use 25% recycled content in their products, 37 fabrics, which have met Ford’s requirements have been incorporated. This is part of Ford’s “Reduce, reuse and recycle” environmentally sustainable global strategy. Repreve reduces the energy consumed in refining virgin material from crude oil. The company recently announced that it uses plastic bottles weighing 20-25 Oz for the carpeting in its new Ford Escape utility vehicle. This is the first time the company has used such carpeting for an SUV. Ford has previously used various non-metal materials that have been recycled for specific applications. Some examples of such usage are seat covers made of recycled yarn, wheat straw-filled plastics, head restraints and seat cushions made of soy foam, instrument panels consisting of castor oil foam and underbody systems made of recycled resins.