MAM
Bisleri makes staff uniforms out of 10,00,000 used bottles
MUMBAI: Bisleri that aims to educate citizens about the importance of recycling and upcycling plastic, has made uniforms for its sales-team from used pet bottles. A great initiative to create sustainable fabrics, these Shirts are crafted from threads derived entirely from recycled bottles. Across India, 5,000 employees are presently wearing these uniforms, upholding the vision of sustainability.
Plastic bottles are still thought to be a threat to the environment but in reality, they are not. With the help of advanced technology, bottles can be transformed into clothing. The idea behind the initiative was to practice what Bisleri preaches that PET bottles post-use are not waste. They are valuable, in fact where old newspaper fetches Rs 6 to Rs 8 per kg where single-use PET bottles fetch a value of Rs 15/- per kg post use. It’s a misconception that bottles lie in the dump yard to become landfill. Water bottles are like gold among all packaging materials.
Currently, in India 90% of all PET is recycled for making yarn, t-shirts, shirts, etc. Bisleri through their bottles for change initiative collected millions of bottles and around ten lakhs bottles were used to make a uniform for all staff of Bisleri.
The process of making recycled Shirts:
With the development in the recycling & upcycling technology, the collected bottles were directly sent to the recycler. The plastic bottles were crushed and converted into flakes. The flakes were converted to fiber in the conversion machine. Pet fibers are dyed in the required shades and mixed with cotton for shirting & with viscose for trousers. It took 40 bottles to make a shirt and around 45 bottles to make a pair of trousers. After mixing, the fiber is converted into yarn on the ring frame spinning machine. Once the yarn is ready, it is converted into fabric through the weaving process on rapier & air-jet looms. Once the weaving is completed, the fabric is then sent for washing and final processing. It is moved to the tailoring unit for stitching the final uniform.
On the announcement of upcycled clothing, Ms. Anjana Ghosh, Director Marketing and OSR, Bisleri International says, “People hate plastic because they are not aware of the feats of recycling. It’s a huge misconception that water bottles add to environmental pollution. In fact, in India, we have a robust recycling industry, which produces high-value fabric, shoes and other products from PET bottles. We thought we should practice what we preach that “plastics are not waste.” Hence our entire staff across India are proudly to burst the myths around plastics. 5000 employees will flaunt their uniforms proudly made from our own plastic bottles."
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
