Nike rolls out green World Cup jerseys

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For the first time, all of Nike’s 2010 national soccer teams, including Brazil, Portugal and The Netherlands, will be wearing jerseys made entirely from recycled polyester. Nike unveiled the new uniforms at an event Friday in London.

"We figure we can use about 8 recycled water bottles to make up one jersey," said Charlie Denson, the Beaverton-based president of the Nike brand.

To make the 2010 national team kits, Nike’s fabric suppliers sourced discarded plastic bottles from Japanese and Taiwanese landfill sites and then melted them down to produce new yarn that was ultimately converted to fabric for the jerseys.

This process saves raw materials and reduces energy consumption by up to 30 percent compared to manufacturing virgin polyester. By using recycled polyester for its new range of national jerseys, Nike prevented nearly 13 million plastic bottles from going into landfill sites. Nike officials said in a press release that if the recycled bottles used to make the jerseys were laid end-to-end the result would be longer than the entire coastline of South Africa — the host of the 2010 World Cup tournament.