He may have won silver in the men’s marathon at the Olympic Games on Sunday, but Kenya’s Abel Kirui would have come first in the race for the greenest tracksuit.

According to Nike, Kirui ran 26.2 miles in a singlet that was dyed without using water and was manufactured from recycled fabric made with the equivalent of three recycled plastic bottles.

To make the fabric, bottles were ground into flakes, melted and then spun into thread. Colour was then added using a dye process developed by Dutch company DyeCoo, which uses recycled carbon dioxide instead of water to fix the dye, resulting in a 50 per cent energy saving and a similar reduction in the use of chemicals.

“Elite athletes demand high performance technology that delivers every time they train and race,” said Martin Lotti, Olympics global design director. “The recycled fabric and water-free dye process we have used for the Kenya singlet is the perfect combination of lightweight performance and low environmental impact.”

Earlier this year, Nike formed a strategic partnership with DyeCoo Textile Systems, giving the sportswear giant access to the first commercially available waterless textile dyeing machines.

Significantly, Nike’s rival Adidas is also looking to adopt similar technology, and has formed a partnership with the Yeh Group, which according to its website has worked with DyeCoo to develop a solution called DryDye that also allows for waterless dying of clothes using a carbon dioxide-based process.

Adidas confirmed late last month that it has already produced 50,000 DryDye t-shirts and plans to use the technology on other lines in future. It said it has become the first brand to introduce DryDye globally.

Both Nike and Adidas are part of an industry coalition that is aiming to reduce the environmental impact of textile manufacturing and remove the discharge of hazardous chemicals from its supply chain by 2020.

The coalition was formed after Greenpeace launched a series of reports, which found that a number of high street brands were linked to Chinese manufacturers that had been accused of spilling harmful chemicals into local water supplies.

Adidas also confirmed it developed 165 new sustainable performance fabrics specifically for the Olympics, including the iconic deep purple jackets and shirts made from 100 per cent recycled materials for the 70,000 Games’ volunteers.

Both Adidas and Nike are currently investing heavily in the development of clothes made using recycled plastics, with Nike similarly producing growing numebrs of its football kits using recycled material.