Soccer team scores big with recycled footwear

While I’m hardly a fan of the sport, I recently attended a soccer game between two of the leading Dutch ladies teams. What stood out to me was the promotion of their recycled footwear. A nice touch of green on the pitch, I thought!

A friend convinced me to attend the match with her in Rotterdam. We enjoyed a sunny afternoon at the city’s arena, surrounded by excited young girls being scouted by various regional teams. It was heartening to see the effort put into training new talent, especially as female players deserve more recognition.

Another nice surprise was the prominently featured Atlas logo. The German recycler has created recycled insoles for sports shoes as well as a runner shoe series made from recycled materials. It’s clear that the sports sector is embracing recycled materials with open arms.

PET shoes

Did you know the shaft of the Atlas runner shoe consists of 92% recycled post-consumer PET bottles? The polyester material is called Repreve and is already used by numerous well-known brands. To produce this recycled polyester, plastic bottles and post-industrial waste collected worldwide are chopped, ground, washed and processed into high-quality flakes. These are melted into liquid polymer, extruded creating filaments that form the Repreve fibre. 

With family-owned companies being the backbone of the recycling industry, it’s worth noting that Atlas is run by Hendrik Schabsky. He is proud to be a fifth generation shoemaker. The ceo points out that, from a materials perspective, there are still some evolutionary properties to be celebrated and recycling is an essential part of this.

‘Repreve recycled polyester is one of the best-certified, traceable fibres in the world,’ he says. The high-quality recycled fibres are made from 100% recycled materials, including production waste from the bottle industry.

Sustainability at our feet

The footwear segment is well-positioned to innovate. This year, the global market will top EUR 425 billion and reach EUR 679 billion by 2032. Big players like Nike, Adidas, Puma and Skechers are increasingly expanding their portfolio to include recycled content.

Salomon recently redesigned its XT_PU.RE footwear model with more sustainable materials, building on its Index range, the brand’s first fully recyclable running shoe. The circular shoe was developed in partnership with Carbios and Far Eastern New Century.

Carbios’ enzymatic biorecycling technology plays a key role in the process, breaking down PET waste into its original monomers, which FENC then repolymerizes into high-quality recycled polyester fibres.

A quirky development is that Acciona Energía and El Ganso have announced a new line of sneakers made from recycled wind turbine blades. The blades came from a Spanish wind farm in Tahivilla that is being renewed. A total of 98 wind turbines are yielding a large source of scrap for this unique collaboration.

Meanwhile, Vietnam-based shoe producer Cirql has launched compostable and fully recyclable footwear foams. Cirql rTPU30 is described as a fully scalable and recyclable midsole made with GRS-certified 30% post-consumer recycled TPU material and manufactured through a ‘chemical-free, supercritical foaming process’.

Market interest growing

Statistics from the US Environmental Protection Agency indicate that 40% of US consumers are willing to spend more money on sustainable footwear. The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery reports a 25% rise in eco-friendly footwear sales in the state from 2021 to 2022. This data mirrors consumer spending and expectations in Europe.

The healthcare sector, with its no-nonsense shoewear, is also getting a recycling boost. Crocs, famously worn by nurses and carers, are now available with 25% post-consumer recycled content. The circular version is called the Keep It Going clog, with material sourced from shoes collected through the brand’s ‘Old Crocs. New Life’ consumer takeback programme.