Greening of SA2010: Jerseys from Plastic Bottles

Today's feel-good story. Well, most days we have a "feel-bad" story, don't we? So this would be "this week's" feel-good story ... or maybe "this month's" ...

Anyway, Nike says it will outfit players from nine teams with jerseys made from recycled plastic bottles.

One of the teams is that from the United States, where Nike is based. Another is Brazil, the favorite to win the whole shootin' match.

This is not one of those moves that will save the world but the sort of small gesture that gets attention and certainly doesn't hurt. I recall South Africa 2010 as, in theory, environmentally friendly, but we haven't seen many examples of it.

The bottles -- 13 million of them -- apparently come from landfills in Japan and Taiwan. The bottles were melted down and turned into polyester.

Nike claims the shirts are actually superior to previous models. They will keep players drier and cooler. (Drier is fine but "cooler" may be not such a great idea considering the tournament will be played in the late fall/early winter, in South Africa.)

Anyway, Nike is trying to wrest soccer-shirt market share from Adidas, its longtime rival, which apparently has dominated the market.

And the story linked, above, notes that South Africa officials concede that carbon emissions for their tournament will be significantly higher than those of the 2006 World Cup, in Germany.

So those jerseys from plastic bottles ... every little bit helps.