Back in the 1960s, it was the crucial period for Taiwan’s textile industry to flourish and promote the country’s economic take-off. Ecomax Textile located in Shenkang Township Chunghwa County was established at that time.

 

The current chairman, Mr. Mark recalled saying“I grew up in a textile factory and I am aware of the fabrics, yarns, and production process and after my father retires, I will take over his business.”

 

In 1993, Mark accidentally heard a speech from Cheng Yen, founder of the Tzu Chi foundation, saying “Use your applauding hands to do recycling”.This made Mark think about how to use his own textile background and devote his work to environmental protection. He once read in a magazine that American Apple brand jeans were made of five bottles but Taiwan didn’t have such technology and production capacity. Mark was deeply moved and made a commitment that he must succeed and make Taiwan use recycled bottles for clothing as well.

Mr. Mark recalled that in order to develop the PET bottle recycling yarn, he had to spent huge sums of money to purchase expensive machinery and equipment in Europe, and that he had to invest a lot of time and manpower costs.At one time he remembered that he even used his belongings and borrowed money from friends. At first, such crazy and paranoid behavior made it difficult for his father to understand, but when he successfully developed the first recycled PETSPUN® in 1996, it became Taiwan’s first company to produce environmentally-friendly recycled fabrics. The hardships and persistence along the way were finally recognized by the family.

Mr. Mark usually explains in details about the bottle recycling process starting from the bottle color classification, label removing, smashing, cleaning and then through melting, spinning to weave fabrics, and then finally made into variety of fabrics. Hence, we can see that in order to make fashion clothes it has to go through so many tedious sections and lots of work goes into it.

The owner of Marks & Spencer in UK heard that Taiwan had a factory for the production of the PETPSUN® yarn and he wanted to help and take action to make a clean environment.With this commitment, he came to Ecomax and placed orders before allowing PETPSUN® yarn to go international.

 

Today, PETPSUN® yarn has evolved to the fifth generation, orders are spread all over the world, well-known sports brands like Nike, Muji and Takashimaya Department Store are all Ecomax customers and although their hearts are proud, but they are not complacent. Instead, this will improve,technology and replace the production machines, so that the quality of yarns will become more excellent and moer fabrics produced will be free from contamination, have good wash ability, and not easily wrinkled and more durable.

Ecomax is now working on circular economy initiatives by considering all impacts of recycling to have no negative impact or turn it into a positive input in other activity a process which is also known as “closing the loop” which means the use of waste of one activity as a resource in another. Mark is also working to achieve C2C (Cradle to Cradle) that calls for going beyond minimizing harm (eco-efficiency) towards creating a beneficial footprint (eco-effectiveness).

 

In 2016, the “Paris Climate Agreement” was formally in force, and the world was paying attention to carbon reduction issues. Ecomax Textile was a leading brand of recycled fiber. As early as 2013, it also developed marine litter recycled fiber made from discarded fishing nets. We are dedicated to the development of new products such as rice recycling fibers and oyster shell recycling fibers.

 

Mr. Mark modestly says “Compared with many textile giants, we are only small and medium-sized enterprise but Ecomax contributes to environmental protection and the universal value it protects is undoubtedly the lights of Taiwan”.