In less than 100 days, 32 countries will battle throughout nine South African cities for the right to earn soccer’s most prestigious trophy. Nine of those squads will be outfitted with Nike jerseys made from recycled polyester.


Nike's bottles-to-T-shirts operation is fairly straightforward. Recycled polyester comes from Japanese and Taiwanese suppliers that cuts up, melts, and spins plastic bottles into a yarn for the shirts. Each shirt will consist of 100% recycled polyester and approximately 8 plastic bottles.



The shirts are slightly more expensive to produce than standard jerseys, but Nike claims that the costs ultimately even out because less material is needed for production. And on the outside, players and fans won't be able to tell the difference between the bottle-filled jerseys and the regular polyester shirts worn by non-Nike teams aka Puma and Adidas.


With this green jersey effort, Nike prevented nearly 13 million plastic bottle from entering global landfills. And besides being good for the environmental, the new threads are designed to keep players drier and help them maintain their optimum core temperature while running around the field for 90 minutes a game (assuming there’s no extra time).


The sides of each jersey have ventilation zones that comprise as many as 200 miniscule holes to allow air circulation, and the tighter-fitting jerseys are optimized to be more aerodynamic, stretching 10 percent more than previous uniforms.


Improved Nike Dri-Fit fabric, now 15 percent lighter than previous Nike kit fabrications, helps keep players dry by drawing sweat to the outside of the garment where it evaporates.


To date, Nike isn't the only company to manufacture shirts out of plastic bottles. Coca-Cola's Drink2Wear shirts are also made out of recycled bottles, and Patagonia started manufacturing fleece out of post-consumer bottles in 1993 with little fanfare.


But by featuring the technology at sporting events watched by millions, Nike is letting the world know that the technology is worth our attention.


Each of these environmental friendly jersey aka Nike World Cup 2010 jersey in a plastic bottle is priced at RM259(Malaysia), $70(US) and £50(UK) in Nike and all major sporting goods outlets.


*In case you are wondering why Umbro and England was included in the photoshoot among the all Nike jersey line-up ?? It's because Nike bought over the English kit maker in 2007 in a deal worth £285m ($580m)*