Giro Renew Series clothing: a green alternative?

Can the Giro Renew Series help reduce cycling’s environmental impact?

How green is your cycling wardrobe? I’m not talking hue, but its environmental credentials. The majority of technical cycling kit is made from synthetic fabrics: even merino contains them. The base material of all synthetics are fossil-fuels and there is a lot of processing and waste involved. The Giro Renew Series looks to help alleviate some of these issues by using a re-cycled nylon called Econyl.

Giro say’s this new range “doesn’t cost the earth” as it is made with varying amounts of recycled nylon. Nylon makes up a large part of our cycling apparel, it’s also a major ingredient in fishing nets, carpets and loads of other products. Much of this – especially the nets – ends up in the sea, where it causes many problems. One of these is the issue of ghost nets. These are abandoned nets that carry on catching fish, sharks, turtles, dolphins and more.

A solution

So the manufacturer of Econyl, Aquafil decided to collect waste nylon: nets and other ocean debris, carpets and scrap nylon. These are then turned back in to virgin nylon. The good thing about nylon is that it can be infinitely recycled and still retain its original properties: there is no degradation. According to their figures “for every 10,000 tons of ECONYL® raw materials that are created, 65,100 tons of CO2 emissions are avoided and 70,000 barrels of crude oil are saved.” The processing is carried out at their plant that is powered by 100% renewable energy. All this has the potential to reduce by up to 90% the global warming impact caused by making nylon from oil.

The Renew Series

With an eye on the damage caused by synthetics Giro have produced their Renew Series, which uses Econyl and other Bluesign materials. They say these offer the same “comfort, performance, and durability as fabrics made from virgin sources, while reducing environmental burden and improving the health of our oceans and planet.”

The Renew Series covers men’s and women’s kit, on and off road, and for all seasons. So you should be able to find something to suit, no matter where or when you’re riding. If you want some figures on how the various ranges stack up, then Giro have the following details:

MOUNTAIN BIKE APPAREL

• 67% of jerseys are in the Renew Series.
• 100% of jerseys use bluesign® materials.
• 100% of shorts use bluesign® materials.

ROAD APPAREL

• 67% of jerseys are in the Renew Series.
• 100% of shorts and bib shorts are in the Renew Series.
• 86% of new styles are in the Renew Series.

Cycling is always touted as a green activity and riding your bike is just that. You produce no harmful emissions travelling to work, the shops or for fun. But and it is a big but, every activity we take part in, if we look far enough back down the chain, will have an impact on the planet. Whether it’s extracting and processing the base material, or manufacturing the finished product, you will have contributed to our emissions.

Products like Econyl can help mitigate the effects we are having on the environment. We should be encouraging more companies to use these materials and methods for all our sakes. We previously looked at the Craft Cadence recycled jersey last year, which uses post-consumer plastic waste in its jersey. But the quality has to be seen to be as good as, or better than Otherwise us consumers won’t buy them. We’ll try and get some of Giro’s Renew Series clothing in to review and let you know how it performs. In the meantime head over and check out the Renew Series range.