86. How it’s made: On Virgin & Recycled Polyester with Sharon Chen

On this week’s episode, we discuss the production process of a pretty infamous material – polyester, or polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and recycled PET, to be precise. Kim is joined by Sharon Chen, the Director Of Business Development at Baichuan Resources Recycling, a leading manufacturer of recycled textiles in China, who speaks about how virgin and recycled PET are manufactured. Sharon tells us about the types of raw materials needed in the process, who they buy these inputs from, and how they’re processed to ultimately become a yarn. She takes us through the spinning, weaving, and dyeing processes and shares a bit about who their customers are. They also talk about why traceability is so important to the company, and how they approach this.

This episode is part of a mini-series that explains the production processes behind different fabrics, the players involved, what are their incentives, and more. It's hard to have a conversation about how to make a material better if we don't understand how it's made in the first place.

Connect with Sharon on LinkedIn. And, get in touch with me on LinkedIn, or drop me an email at [email protected].

CREDITS:

Host: Kim van der Weerd

This is a Maed in India production.

Recording Engineers: Lakshman Parsuram & Kartik Kulkarni
Sound Editor & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni

Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas

Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome

Producer: Husein Haveliwala