From PET bottle to fashion, this Indian clothing brand found a new lease of life with PM Modi's endorsement

Senthil Sankar, the Managing Partner of EcoLine Clothing, is a prime example of an entrepreneur who prioritised giving back to his community instead of focussing on money. A VIT graduate, Senthil declined a lucrative MNC job offer abroad and built a business in a Tier III city in Tamil Nadu.

“In my opinion, people consume all the resources of the country and when it is time to give back, they move to another country. I didn’t want to do that but stay and create something that would help my country and my people,” says Senthil. 

Based in Karur, EcoLine Clothing is among the pioneers of the "bottle-to-garment" concept in India. This innovative company uses recycled PET bottles to manufacture sustainable clothing, which has garnered widespread acclaim. The company came into the spotlight after Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently wore a jacket made by EcoLine Clothing.

Building up from death valley

The genesis of EcoLine Clothing lies in polymer technology company Shree Renga Polymers, which Senthil's father K Sankar set up in 2018. 

Despite having a reputed job in the polymer industry, Sankar’s aspiration was to be an entrepreneur and his stint with entrepreneurship started in 2008 when he began recycling PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) bottles to hot wash (transparent) flakes, which are used to make other products such as fibers and plastic bottles. 

However, sustainability wasn’t a buzzword at the time, and collecting waste from different regions of Tamil Nadu was a struggle for Sankar. Additionally, he had to endure judgment as society didn’t approve of an IITian collecting waste from fields. 

A quick read on a similar topic...

---

This entrepreneur is reviving dying crafts of Bihar to build a sustainable fashion brand

At this time Senthil was still in school. Recalling the time he says that he would see his father doing all that work but the business never kicked off. “My mother is an IITian too and she was the bread earner and supported the home to make ends meet,” Senthil says.

As Senthil went on to complete his engineering degree, Sankar wanted him to bag a comfortable job abroad. However, just like his father, Senthil wanted to do something of his own

In 2015, Senthil joined his father’s struggling business.  

“My father had already built a micro-level business in recycling a PET bottle to flakes which we scaled up to making masterbatches–a solid additive used for coloring (color masterbatch) or imparting other properties (additive masterbatch) to plastic,’ Senthil tells SMBStory.

Senthil says they wanted to build a bigger business and used their savings to buy an old garment plant in Chennai. However, the money in hand was not sufficient to run operations. According to Senthil, they didn’t have collaterals that would count up to get loans and no investor wanted to invest in a business that didn’t have a stable revenue model. 

“We were in a death valley,” Senthil says.

It took more than a year for the father-son duo to set up the plant. “There was a time when we took loans to pay salaries. Even our employees invested in us with the faith that we are doing something big and I feel so proud that they trusted us and are still with us,” says Senthil. 

By 2019, Shree Renga Polymers had entered making yarns and fibres supplying to various industries including automotives, textile, technical textile, and many more and this is how after so many speed breakers, they finally kicked off. 

Perseverance is the key

In 2021, the father-son duo came up with the idea of building a garment brand taking a step forward in building the nation's first recycled PET bottle garment brand and they did it. 

“You see, the textile value chain is very complex. We had a vision of converting a dirty plastic bottle into a pretty garment, and we did it and that’s what fascinated even the Prime Minister. Never in our wildest dreams did we have thought that Mr Modi would be wearing EcoLine’s clothing product and I feel more proud that with this endorsement, Karur, a place hardly anyone knows in India became the spotlight,” Senthil says. 

EcoLine Clothing has around 200 SKUs. The company's jackets, t-shirts, athleisure wear etc are completely made of PET bottles while other products have blended organic cotton. 

Talking about the sustainability aspect of the brand, Senthil highlights that in general, textile dyeing requires 2.4 trillion gallons of water every year but the dope dye technology EcoLine uses doesn’t require a single drop of water. Besides, the water used for cleansing the PET bottles is treated and reused.

Senthil didn’t disclose the sales and financial figures but says that in a span of five years, EcoLine has created a major impact and prevented around 81 lakh PET bottles from going into landfills and oceans which is one of the highest pollutants in the environment. 

At present, EcoLine Clothing’s products are available on their own website plus ecommerce portals like Amazon, Flipkart, AJIO, etc. 

Challenges and goals

The consumer mindset is one of the biggest challenges which the company goes through. Senthil says that customers are still sceptical wearing clothes made out of plastic. 

“Many people react like, ‘how can we wear something made out of plastic,’ and this is the mindset we are committed to change by innovating and bringing more fashion-oriented products,” he adds. 

Corporate orders began trickling in after PM Modi made a public appearance wearing the blue sadri (a sleeveless jacket). Senthil says that he is also getting a lot of queries from various departments of ministries. 

Senthil expects that by 2030, EcoLine Clothing would convert all the fibres the company is making into garments. “Seven years down the line, we will be an altogether different company,” he signs off.