James Murray

This is less of a review, more of an observation: Nike's new World Cup shirts made from recycled bottles are genuinely remarkable.

It's not a real review on a number of grounds. Firstly, the iconic yellow Brazil shirt the nice people at Nike sent over is a little on the big side and looks a bit like a tent when I put it on.

Secondly, I have a severe psychological aversion to football shirts – it's not so much sartorial snobbery, more the fact that the first football top I owned was part of a bright orange Ipswich Town away strip from the late 80s. If that won't put you off sportswear for life, nothing will.

And thirdly, reviewing the shirt properly would require me to spend an hour and half charging around on the South African High Veld in temperatures of over 20 degrees in order to check Nike's claims that its new Dri-Fit fabric really will keep me feeling cool and comfortable even as the sweat stings my eyes. This is not to be advised for a man with a dodgy knee who has skipped the gym more often than is advisable over the past few weeks.

However, what I can tell you is that the shirt looks and feels brilliant, in every sense of the word. In fact, the only way you'll know the shirt is made from recycled materials is by looking at the label.

Like many people, I was used to be under the impression that fabrics made from recycled plastics are bound to be scratchy or in some way inferior from those made from virgin materials. This is, of course, daft if you think about it. Many of our clothes are basically made from oil or chemicals that have been manipulated to produce plastics that can then be turned into man-made fibres. There is nothing about the process that requires pure and unsullied plastics, and it stands to reason that you can manipulate used plastics in much the same way as you can those that have been made from scratch.

The net result is a football shirt that feels exactly the same as any other football shirt, except that the Nike shirt feels fractionally lighter than you'd expect.

It's an identical story with other clothes made from recycled materials. I also own a running shirt from British firm Yew Clothing that has similarly been made from recycled bottles, and it's exactly the same - put it on and there is no discernible difference from a standard running shirt. The idea that recycled fabrics are in some way worse than the rest of your wardrobe is nothing but a myth.

There is no reason why more companies should not go down this route. Nike reckons sourcing old plastic bottles from Japanese and Taiwanese landfill sites has cut carbon emissions through the production process by up to 30 per cent, while slashing the number of plastic bottles going to landfill by nearly 13 million.

Production costs are likely to be higher at first, but they cannot be that great given that clothes made from recycled plastics do not appear to boast much of a price premium. The Nike World Cup shirts, for example, have a recommended retail price of £50, which may sound a lot but as anyone with a young football fan in their family will tell you is entirely in line with the rest of the market. Moreover, overheads are bound to fall as recycling processes scale up and the market for recycled materials grows.

Inevitably, you can make a valid case that the seasonal updating of football shirts is a prime example of our unsustainably disposable approach to clothing. But while footballers no longer qualify as role models (unless priapic arrogance is something to aspire to), Nike has hit on an approach to sustainable clothing that more firms should emulate.