In a first for Western Australia, teamwear for community sports clubs and schools is being made from recycled plastic bottles.

Mecca Sports has been supporting grassroots sports in Western Australia for nearly a decade. In WA alone, it provides hundreds of sporting clubs, schools and other sports groups with sublimated teamwear, including the Scarborough Cricket Club, and Newton Moore SHS in the heart of the South West.

Now Mecca is supporting grassroots clubs by helping to ensure there is a future for our planet.

Sports teams from Albany to Karratha and beyond will be wearing a unique fabric called Intercool made from this ecological new polyester fibre.

Recycled Polyester (R-PET) is environmentally friendly, cost-effective and safe; the regenerated polyester fibre is made from recycled plastic bottles and performs as well as regular virgin polyester.

Mecca Sports’ founder and Managing Director, Daniel Sadik, says they have long been conscious of the impact of waste on our environment. As a result, Mecca bulk pack all of their sublimated garments without single-use plastic bags to minimise waste.

Today they are taking it one step further.

Mecca decided to switch to using R-PET in early 2019 and began rolling out the recycled Intercool fabric garments from the start of 2020. The effects of climate change are already being seen and felt around Australia. 

“I think everyone in our generation is conscious of climate change,” Sadik says, “and we want to do our part to ensure a future for generations to come.”

“People often ask themselves what they can do to make a difference, we’re pleased to be able to play our part. Using R-PET as opposed to regular polyester helps us to keep plastic bottles out of the landfill and our oceans and helps to save natural resources.” 

R-PET uses 70% less energy and 85% less water than regular polyester, and the CO2 emissions from it are drastically lower.

One of Mecca’s biggest customers is Perth’s Street Roller Hockey League, with hundreds of players for teams including the Mandurahlorians, Maylands Before Time, and Kenwick Lamars all wearing the local supplier’s uniforms.

Chai Oonnankat, board member of Perth’s Street Roller Hockey League, said “We are very excited that our long-time partner Mecca Sports is introducing sustainable fabrics in their line of teamwear.

“This means that our beloved hockey jerseys will have a smaller carbon footprint in the future.

“The SRHL is hundreds of teams, each with dozens of players wearing unique jerseys. It warms our collective heart, rather the planet, to be repping this sustainable fabric.”

Mecca’s sustainable, custom sports uniforms will be shipping to teams around Australia soon.

More from The Business Conversation:

COSBOA launches push to attract more women into small business

Smart research for small law

Monash expert says Australian shoppers are "seizing control of the retail landscape"