Mitsubishi Corp.(MC) and Japanese textile maker Toyobo Co., Ltd. have jointly established ECHORCLUB, a project that aims to market environmentally friendly clothing made of polyester produced from recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles.
A variety of clothing, including Uniforms, Working wears, T-shirts, Poloshirts, Sweatshirts and using filament yarn, Sweat shirts (jersey), Wind-breakers(woven), Bags(woven), Tents(woven) and Umbrella(woven), will be produced and marketed under the ECHORCLUB brand name.

The production of PET bottles has risen steadily in recent years.
Production is expected to reach 250,000tons in 1998 from 100,000tons in 1989 in Japan. Further, with the enactment of the Law for Promotion of Utilization of Recyclable Resources this year, the reuse of waste materials and the forming of recycling systems have been in the spotlight.
Against this background, MC and Toyobo launched ECHORCLUB.

The first stage of this project is the sale of ECHORCLUB-brand clothing.
Toyobo will be in charge of production, from new technology development to making the polyester, which is produced from resins extracted from the flakes of PET bottles, MC will market the polyester fabrics.
Sales are estimated at 150,000maters in 1996, 600,000meters in 1997 and 3,000,000meters in 1998.
MC will market final clothing products in addition to the fabrics.

During the project's second stage, the clothing product lineup will be expanded, ECHORCLUB group and company members that support both the ECHORCLUB "Ecological Fashion" concept and products will be recruited, and applications for consumer and industrial materials unrelated to clothing will be developed.


Please contact us for Further Details

TOYOBO CO., LTD.
Head office(OSAKA)
2-8, Dojima Hama 2-chome, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-8230, Japan

Textiles Department
Telephone; 81-6-6348-3590
Facsimile; 81-6-6348-3799
E-mail;ecogoods@ho.toyobo.co.jp

TOYOBO AMERICA, INC.
40East 52nd Street, 20th Floor NewYork, NY10022 U.S.A
Telephone;1-212-317-9245&1-800-7Toyobo
Facsimile;1-212-317-9280
E-mail;Tamny@ix.netcom.com


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