Ask any marathoner to run 42 km in cotton and watch the grimace. Natural fibres breathe, yes, but they also absorb and  retain sweat once the effort spikes. They get heavy and may cause chafing. Peak performance still belongs to synthetics.

The sustainability problem is obvious: virgin polyester and nylon are fossil fuels made solid, with a landfill after-life measured in centuries. At Athlos, we choose the second-best solution to running naked—build activewear from recycled waste that already exist on ground and in ocean.  

Our regenerated nylon comes from ECONYL®, a closed-loop system that rescues discarded fishing nets, carpet fluff and industrial plastic, then depolymerises and re-spins the waste into fibre chemically identical to virgin nylon—minus the oil well. Water and solvent are recovered and reused, so the same nylon can circle back into itself again and again. Sustainable fashion magazine Pretty as you please wrote about sustainability of Econyl in their blog here. 

For polyester we lean on REPREVE®, a traceable yarn spun from post-consumer bottles and textile scraps. Each strand carries a microscopic FibrePrint™ marker, verifying origins instead of relying on marketing spin. The programme has already diverted more than 35 billion plastic bottles from landfills and oceans.  

Recycled synthetics slash CO₂, conserve energy and keep high-performance on the body, off the ground or landfills. Until we can all race in our birthday suits, it’s the trade-off we’re proud to make.