Sports(S)Street uses man-made fibers made from 100% annually renewable resources to manufacture its functional wear. Ingeo is the trademark for these fibers. The use of fibers made from bamboo, charcoal, soybean, corn and milk is an innovation and Sports(S)Street has adopted it for the maximum comfort of its customers.

The process starts with breaking down plant starches into sugars to make use of the carbon naturally stored in plants by photosynthesis. These natural plant sugars then go through the process of simple fermentation and separation in which the carbon and other elements in these sugars are converted into polylactide (a polymer) called NatureWorks PLA. This polymer can then be spun into a fiber and is ready for use in textiles.

Fibers from plants like bamboo and corn (Ingeo) have certain characteristics which make them better than natural fibers. The characteristics are:

• high strength
• high dimensional stability
• high resilience
• more resistant to ultraviolet light than most other synthetics
• relatively low flammability and smoke generation
• Ingeo, when blended with cotton and wool, makes clothes which are lighter, absorb moisture better and wick water away from the skin. This is because Ingeo is more hydrophillic than other polyester fibers.
• Moisture regain of PLA is significantly lower than natural fibers.
• Elastic recovery is superior to all other fibers compared at 5% strain.