By Barry Moody
LONDON
(Reuters) - Many of the world's top soccer players,
including Cristiano Ronaldo, will be wearing shirts made of
old plastic bottles at the World Cup in South
Africa.
Nike said shirts for the nine national teams wearing its gear,
including one of the favourites Brazil, would be made from
polyester recycled from used bottles. Each shirt would use up to
eight plastic bottles retrieved from Japanese and Taiwanese
landfill sites, said Nike, the world's biggest sports goods
manufacturer.
All of
the nine teams, who also include Portugal, Netherlands and the
United States, will wear the shirts.
Nike says they will keep players drier and cooler than
previous kit while reducing energy consumption in manufacture by 30
percent compared to normal polyester.
Thirty-two teams will be at the month-long finals starting on June
11.
Manufacture of the shirts, which will also be sold to fans, used 13
million plastic bottles -- enough to fill 29 football pitches --
the U.S. company said in a media release.
The
bottles were melted to produce polyester yarn,
which Nike says will ensure the most
environmentally-friendly kit ever. "We are equipping athletes with
newly designed uniforms that not only look great and deliver
performance benefits, but are also made with recycled materials,
creating less impact on our environment," said Charlie Denson,
president of Nike Brand.
Nike,
which dominates sales in athletics and basketball, is mounting a
major campaign to win a bigger share in soccer, the world's most
popular sport.
The
company told Reuters earlier this week that it would stage a
marketing blitz at the World Cup to attack rivals Adidas, the
long-time market leader.
South
Africa says carbon emissions from the World Cup are expected to
soar compared with the 2006 tournament in Germany but it will
invest in carbon credits to mitigate the impact. Nearly seven
percent of the emissions will come from air travel to the long-haul
destination.