US National Soccer Team To Debut 100% Recycled Jerseys

Jake de Grazia - Contributing Writer

Posted on Tuesday 2nd March 2010

On Wednesday, the US National Soccer Team plays the Netherlands in its final tune-up match before this summer's World Cup tournament.

Both teams will be wearing jerseys made of plastic bottles rescued from landfills in Japan and Korea.

Nike and their suppliers did the rescuing, designing, and manufacturing, and the USA and the Netherlands are only two of the ten teams for which they have provided 100% recycled jerseys. Brazil, Portugal, England*, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Serbia, and Slovenia are the other eight. And that means that every Nike jersey in the 2010 world cup will have been made from 100% recycled materials.

For more information, read this post from the World Cup Blog and this post on Treehugger.

And, in case you want to see the jerseys in action, the USA vs. Netherlands match kicks off at 2:45 PM EST on Wednesday, March 3. It'll be televised live on ESPN2.

(Thanks to Earth911.com.)

*You'll notice that Team England isn't pictured in the photograph above. They are present in the photograph accompanying this article, but they are not mentioned in some other articles about the recycled jerseys, and that seems strange to me. Maybe they aren't wearing the jerseys? Maybe they're not working with Nike anymore? If anyone knows, please share in the comments. Thanks!

test image for this block