Shoes be trash
No one loves Shoes more than I do. I may not have the most shoes out there, or spend the most money, but I genuinely love shoes. I love the way they look, the way the feel on my feet, the way designers combine different designers combine things to make beauty.
I hate that shoes end up in the trash.
Most people go through shoes way faster than they ever go through a shirt, or shorts, or pants. The only other comparison is socks. However, Shoes have more materials -- their carbon footprint has to be way higher, right?
Shoes are trashy.
So how do we make genuinely recyclable shoes?
Many major companies have tried. All have failed.
The recyclable athletic shoes are all at high prices, niche products, or have some kind of strange design. As you'll see, it's almost like the companies are trying to hide them, in favor of their more marketable products.
To be clear, this isn't evil, it's Capitalism.
I'm sure there are better, recyclable shoes out there! But I care mostly about the major players -- they control the market. They have the most impact. We need the Adidas, Nike, Puma, Vans, etc to step up and create truly recycable shoes that the every-day consuemr wants.
A look at the players
Nike recycles their shoes (a small fraction of the shoes people actually buy) by grinding them up and giving them into sport courts. Lately they've experimented with putting the grinded-up-shoes into their Space Hippie line, but it's unclear how much of an impact that makes. At best, the shoes are recycled once, and then end up in the trash. Or the sport court?
Adidas has has their "futurecraft.loop" advertising. That project seems to have been abandoned. The idea was to have a shoe that is made entirely of TPU. Once the shoe was worn down, it could simply be ground down and re-made into the shoes. We've had radio silence from Adidas. Perhaps the project wasn't economically viable? Or they found the recycled shoes aren't good enough for consumers?
They advertise the crap out of Adidas & Allbirds collab: https://www.adidas.com/us/futurecraft-allbirds
However, if you go to "shop," all the shoes are out of stock.
On running have their Cyclon program. Shoppers subscribe to their shoes for $30/month. After at least three months, you simply send your shoes back and get a new pair. They advertise that the shoes last 6 months, but it's unclear under what usage. All-day wear? Running every other day? If running, then what's the total mileage? It's unclear. $180 for a new pair of shoes every 6 months is ... rough. Especially if you'd like to have two pairs of shoes. Oh, by the way, you probably have to be a sustainability nerd to find them. They're listed dead last on their shoe shopping page. Because of the subscription model, you also can't find them in running shoe stores. I appreciate the innovation, but it isn't enough.
Salomon is doing something similar to On, but with a more traditional business model. $180 for a new pair of completely "recyclable" shoes. The shoes have been designed to be "easy to dissasemble." Sounds fine enough. But where do they end up? Sadly it's not clear. I appreciate the innovation, but it isn't enough.
Until a company can make a mainstream product completely recyclable, we'll still end up with all of our shoes in the trash. Imagine if Nike Frees were recyclable? Or Adidas Ultraboosts? Or Yeezys? Or Jordans? Or Vans Authentics?
Consumers have shown that they are, on average, not willing to spend more money to buy shoes merely because they are recycable. The industry needs to instead provide more recycle-ability as the standard.
Follow along on the blog as I look at other shoes and dive into the major players.