How a Yorkshire academy trust has stepped up eco-friendly efforts with new uniform made from recycled bottles

Outwood Grange Academies Trust, which operates 34 academies across northern England and the East Midlands, has saved more than six hundred thousand plastic bottles from landfill thanks to its new uniform.

At each of its 23 secondary academies, students now wear blazers and trousers made using fabric that has been manufactured from recycled drinks bottles, by its uniform supplier Trutex.

Katy Bradford, chief operating officer from the Outwood Academies Trust, said: "At Outwood we are passionate about the environment and promoting the importance of sustainability.

"Our vision is students first, and this goes beyond the classroom for us.

"The students of today are the adults of tomorrow and it’s our duty to ensure we do all we can to make sure the world they inherit is a healthy one."

Each blazer saves around 36 plastic bottles from ending up in a landfill site and boys trousers, 19 bottles.

The numbers have been calculated from the Outwood blazers and boy’s trousers ordered from Trutex from October 2019 up until September 2020. The trust provides every child who joins the school with a free set of uniform, including their blazer.

To make a yarn suitable for use in the blazers and boy’s trousers, the plastic bottles are put in together in a bale which is then broken down into flake. The flake then goes through de-polymerisation and re-polymerisation process to make recycled chips which are melted and extruded to make yarn.

The yarn is then woven into the high quality fabric that is used to make the blazer.

Lily Ford, a year 7 student at Outwood Academy Shafton, said: “I am delighted that Outwood is helping to raise awareness about sustainability and how important it is that we all do our bit to ensure we help the environment.

"I am very passionate about this issue, and I am inspired by the acts of other young people who are working hard for the environment. I was inspired by discussions at the Outwood Sustainability Summit last year, and was hopeful that it would lead to action."

Matthew Easter, the chief executive at Trutex, added: “Outwood is a long-term and highly valued partner of our business and has contributed a huge amount towards the nine million bottles Trutex save every year from landfill.

"As a carbon neutral business we’re always looking at innovative ways to reduce environmental waste and look forward to working with Outwood in the future to continue this work.”

The issue of sustainability is currently being promoted heavily across the trust and recently the trust launched a sustainability tour involving the Outwood penguin.

The Outwood penguin is the result of the first ever Outwood Sustainability Summit which was held last academic year, following a student writing to Outwood chief executive, Martyn Oliver, to express her interest in pushing the prominent issue of sustainability with him and the wider trust.

Ms Bradford added: "We need to get young people talking about sustainability; it is important to their futures and it is important that they play their part in protecting the world we live in."

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