Nike Unveils a Selection of World Cup 2010 Kits, Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles

February 26th, 2010 | by: Daryl |

nike World Cup 2010 jerseys

We’ve been waiting to see what the nine Nike flavoured teams (10 if you count England) would be wearing at World Cup 2010 for some time now, but ~~all~~ some was finally revealed yesterday, when Nike unveiled a mixture of said World Cup teams home and away kits at Battersea Power Station in London yesterday. The players in the above faux team photo, and the jerseys they’re sporting are as follows:

Top row, left to right: Clint Dempsey (USA away), Edson Braafheid (Netherlands away), Alexandre Pato (Brazil home), Lee Chung-Yong (South Korea away), Ryan Nelsen (New Zealand away);
Bottom row, left to right: Nani (Portugal away), Vince Grella (Australia away), Robert Koren (Slovenia away), Nenad Milijaš (Serbia away).

The headline grabbing thing about these jerseys is that all are apparently made from recycled plastic bottles. Which raises the obvious question: What? Also: How? Well, according to this Waste Aware Scotland story:

“To make the 2010 national team kits, Nike’s fabric suppliers sourced discarded plastic bottles from Japanese and Taiwanese landfill sites and then melted them down to produce new yarn that was ultimately converted to fabric for the jerseys.

This process saves raw materials and reduces energy consumption by up to 30 percent compared to manufacturing virgin polyester. By using recycled polyester for its new range of national jerseys, Nike prevented nearly 13 million plastic bottles, totaling nearly 254,000 kg of polyester waste, from going into landfill sites. This amount would be enough to cover more than 29 football pitches. If the recycled bottles used to make the jerseys were laid end-to-end they would cover more than 3,000 kilometres, which is more than the entire coastline of South Africa.”

Maybe Indonesia’s Green World Cup 2022 bid is having an effect already?

- Once the above jerseys are for sale, you’ll be able to find them (and other World Cup 2010 shirts) in the World Cup Blog Store.

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Bill

So disappointed in Australia’s away jersey. Much preferred the simple clean design of the last WC away jersey. I will not be buying this one.

And how many Charlie Brown jokes can we make about the Serbian away kit?

I think it’s great that Nike has customized each team’s kit rather than rolling out a templated design for all teams & just changing the colours, but a couple of these designs are simply awful.
http://www.worldcupblog.org Daryl

Hard to disagree Bill. But like you I give credit to Nike for individually designing the kits. Puma have been annoying me for a while with their identikit approach.
http://www.worldcupblog.org chris

Clint Dempsey looks like he just won Miss Texas.
http://www.worldcupblog.org Daryl

Like he won Miss Texas and gets to take her home? Or like he won the competition himself? Either way it’s a good story.
BT

The awesome ‘Charlie Brown’ kit is actually Slovenia’s.
http://www.worldcupblog.org chris

The sash clearly means Clint – beard and all – lapped the field.
victor

Well I like ‘em all. Kudos to Nike for individual designs, and I also like their shape and fitting, very 70’s-esque [/snob stylist]
Michael

I like the individuality of a lot of them, but I have to echo the dissatisfaction with Australia’s away kit. To me it screams Boca Juniors with the single yellow stripe. My only other hesitation would be that some of the away kits look… busy. Better this individualistic lot than what Adidas has done with MLS, though, making a dozen teams contend with two designs amongst them.
Johnny

I laughed out loud with the USA pageant references. STRIPE!

Honestly have seen them as a full kit. The US socks unseen with swishes too seemed to complete it.

Looked good imho for an away.
Kjesare

That’s some beautiful purple shoes most are wearing…..
Hello

I don’t get the Charlie Brown references. Could someone explain?
japple

google image search charlie brown.

you’ll see.
http://defutebol.net Bobby Gee

The USA favs to win it Give me a break. Brasil is the team. The Duck wearing the brasil kit. I love it. I can’t wait. http://defutebol.net
http://slovenia.worldcupblog.org Zala

I have to say something about your “Charlie Brown joke”. No offense but those three mountains, or whatever you prefer to call them, are representing our country. It should represent our highest mountain Triglav (Threeheads in English). And I think it’s the best thing about our kits. Triglav is a piece of our coat of arms so I always say-kit represents the country. Sadly our country has a flag of red, blue and white and many countries have the same colours so it’s easier to represent it with something else.

But anyway I like this new kits and it’s amazing that they are made of bottles.
123

The man who published this news, is really stupid. Are you lazy or you just give a shit what you will publish. Bottom row, 3. from the left: Robert Koren #8 (C), Slovenia (Away). And of course it has nothing in common with Charlie Brown. Luv´ya all
RH

For the Slovenian guy above, I loved your kits for the 2002 WC, that showed your country’s great mountain as well. But this one could be better.
http://slovenia.worldcupblog.org Zala

For RH.
They are the same as for the 2002 WC. This kit on the picture is for away matches. Home kits are the same. You can have a look at them on my site. Just click on my name and you’ll be there.
http://watch-fifa-live.com Watch FIFA Live

Very interesting, and its a good thing that they are making use of waste. 13 MILLION plastic bottles? That number is hard to imagine!
Ebrahim

Is Brasil the only shirt that doesnt get the small stripe on the sleeves?? Like they’re something special…
B

I’m sorry but they are all weak… classy and simplistic, but I mean I expected a lot more coming from nike especially since they had seen all of the puma and adidas designs before they came out with their line. Even adidas who designed Argentina’s away jerseys to be a throwback to a previous world cup looks better than all of these. I think it’s fair that I don’t buy any of these. I don’t care if adidas made a template for a number of jerseys this summer, they all look better then this crap! I love nike jerseys but this was a huge dissappointment. Props to the bottle technique, at least we know they are thinking about something.