Taiwan’s first recycled PET fiber
Ecomax is located in Changhua County’s Shengang Township, next door to Hemei Township, which is known as “the hometown of the Weaver Girl” (a figure from Chinese folk culture). This area was once a bastion of the textile industry in Taiwan. But in the 1990s many Taiwanese firms relocated abroad, and textile factories in Changhua closed one after the other. Ecomax was one of the few companies that stayed.
Ecomax was founded in 1968 by Mark Ke’s father, former managing director Ko King-xi, and specialized in weaving fabric from the artificial fiber rayon. Mark Ke grew up surrounded by the textile production process and textile technology, and joined the management team at his father’s firm after he completed his military service. The story of Ecomax’s transformation from a traditional textile factory into an internationally respected eco-friendly textile brand started, quite by accident, when Ke heard a speech by Dharma Master Cheng Yen, founder of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation.
“I watched as the small figure onstage softly said, ‘I ask all of you to use the hands you are applauding with to protect the environment.’” These words deeply moved Mark Ke and changed his life. At that moment he vowed to himself: “For the rest of my life I will follow in the footsteps of the Dharma Master.”
But how could textile manufacturing be combined with environmental protection? This question remained constantly on Ke’s mind, until he happened to read an article in an in-flight magazine about how American brand-name jeans were being made out of recycled PET plastic bottles. This sparked his curiosity and gave him a direction for the environmental protection that he had been thinking so hard about. Ke, who knew nothing at all about processing plastics, did in-depth study of the subject. Just as many other textile firms were relocating abroad to reduce costs, Ke went against the trend by investing great amounts of time and capital in Taiwan to develop novel technology, a decision that his father found difficult to understand. Facing many challenges, Mark Ke says: “Looking back, there were times when I had to hold back my tears; it was really tough.” But he was determined to show the world that Taiwan could do it too.
At each step in the production process—from separating out PET bottles from other plastic waste, washing them, shredding them, and melting them into polyester chips, to drawing polyester filament, spinning it into yarn and weaving the yarn into fabric—Ke sought out the technologies needed to develop recycled PET fiber. Finally, after three years of effort, in 1993 Ecomax successfully developed Taiwan’s first recycled PET fiber, and registered the trademark “PETSPUN” to market it.
In a spirit of social responsibility, Mark Ke has dedicated himself to the development of eco-friendly textiles.