Recycled polyester saved this American factory. Environmentalists hate it.

Jun 27, 2025

A visit to one of Unifi’s* last remaining U.S. polyester plants, in Yadkinville, N.C., can make you feel like an optimist. After driving through a sweet little neighborhood of small homes, you crest the hill and see the Unifi facility on your right: giant silver-gray buildings perched on a tidy, gently rolling lawn that looks like an advertisement for organic milk. A small solar farm sits off to the side, and 18-wheelers branded in grass-green and sky-blue livery pull in and out of the property, dropping off clean PET plastic flake and picking up shipments of polyester fiber.

 

https://www.wired.com/story/repreve-recycled-polyester-saved-unifi-factory-environmentalists-hate-it/