Fashion for Good — along with brand partners
adidas, Inditex, Target and Zalando — has launched a pilot with
footwear-recycling innovator FastFeetGrinded
to test and validate the process to support the uptake of recycled content in
footwear, driving the ongoing change towards a more circular footwear industry.
“This project will be a first in the footwear industry to allow us to understand
the sustainable recycling technologies and infrastructures needed to accelerate
the transition towards a circular future,” said Katrin
Ley, Managing Director at
Fashion for Good. “By fostering collaborative partnerships like this, where
companies come together to share knowledge and validate innovation, we pave the
way for scalable solutions.”
Globally, 24 billion
shoes
are added to the market each year; and a staggering 90 percent of those are
either landfilled or incinerated, according to
research
from Vivobarefoot — another innovator working to eliminate the vast amount of
waste in the footwear industry by reimagining how shoes are designed, made and
remade.
Circularity is gradually gaining a foothold in footwear — with upcycling
everything from marine
plastic
and carbon
emissions
to their own used
footwear
into new footwear components; but efforts to date are nowhere near the scale
needed to meaningfully curtail the industry demand for raw materials, which is
expected to triple by
2050.
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Netherlands-based startup FastFeetGrinded’s unique process deconstructs any
type of pre- and post-consumer shoe and breaks it down into its
macro-components. These macro-components are then subsequently grinded down into
smaller, high-purity granulates which the company may use to create material
streams for repurposed use.
Through this collaborative pilot, the partners will divert pre- and
post-consumer footwear to FastFeetGrinded, which will transform them into
various new material granulates. The next step involves the company’s extensive
network of supply chain partners — which will produce test products such as
outsoles, midsoles and flip flops. Fashion for Good and its partners will
closely evaluate the products’ quality and purity, aiming to showcase the
potential of FastFeetGrinded’s footwear-recycling technology and pave the way
for scalable solutions.
Click here to learn more about how your company can partner with FastFeetGrinded to scale circularity in footwear.
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Aug 1, 2023 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST