Solar energy

Currently there are two solar powered road lights, on each side of our factory entrance, for night time lighting. They automatically sense, switch on when the light-level is low in night times, and switch off during the day.

Recycled bottles to clothes

Producing one kilo of general cotton shirts will consume 130 – 150kgs of water. Using recycled bottles as material to produce the same color of clothes, such as using green bottles to produce green shirts, will greatly reduce water consumption for 60-80%, since there is no dyeing process involved. In addition, the wash and sun durability of these clothes can achieve level 4 and above.

Incinerator

Incinerator: Although SuperTextile would like to re-utilize all the waste resources, there are still some that are difficult to be reused, such as: confidential documents, arisings, and tree branches, etc., which will have to go to an incinerator. However, the heat energy produced from the incineration process can heat up 4 tons of water which should be applied to kitchen hot washing-water in the future. The ashes will go to the land.

Wind power

The biggest cause to climate change is energy consumption. The energy is mainly from oil, coal, and nuclear. These are the limited resources of the earth. Nuclear energy also has safety concern, so the most environmentally friendly energy is wind power and solar energy. Ten years ago, SuperTextile has started putting effort in the testing and practical application of wind power. We have applied wind power on eight lighting sets, 1000 watts, for our hallways. One turbine blade was once damaged by typhoon, and we made a purchase for a new replacement blade. According to our calculation, it will take another 90 years for the produced electricity to cover the cost of these wind power instrument. Only a fool will do such a thing, but in SuperTextile, we have our beliefs and persistence.

Recycled plant tubes

According to the data from EPA, the average plastic bag used in Taiwan annually is 19 billion; among these, only 7% is recycled, and the rest 93% is buried in the garbage, gutter…and everywhere, causing a big environmental problem. There is no country in the world so far is dealing with the plastic bag recycling specifically, due to the cost-effective issue; only Taiwan is recycling plastic bags. SuperTextile has been thinking how to fully utilize these resources; so far we have successfully made these resources into plastic tubes that can be applied to replacing paper tubes, and the plant retaining walls for landscape decoration.

Recycled caps to pallets

People have been using recycled bottles for textile material for more than 10 years, but caps and labels have not yet been used by any one. In the past, labels were made from PVC. After government has imposed the use of PET, now labels are made from PET, the same material as bottles’; therefore, label’s pollution issue has been solved. However, cap’s pollution issue still exists. In order to implement the cradle-to-cradle belief of zero pollution and zero waste, SuperTextile has devoted two years researching and developing a way to re-utilize these recycled caps. SuperTextile believes that their mission is to research and develop products that are closely related to people’s lives, thus to make contribution to humankind by improving their lives. There are four basic human needs: food, clothing, shelter and transportation, so what we do in SuperTextile is: converting bottles to clothing materials and caps to transportation pallets. Compared to traditional wooden pallets, Cap-made pallets are light, stackable thus space-saving, more durable and without pest problems. Many advanced countries in Europe and America have banned the use of wooden pallets due to pest problems.