Narrator: We make nearly 50 billion shoes every year.
And nearly all of them end up in landfills.
Now, a company in the Netherlands claims it's figured out
how to recycle footwear.
Processing up to 2,500 of them per hour
And some big brands, like Adidas,
say they're trying to cut down on waste too,
by using materials made from ocean plastic.
So why is it so hard to recycle shoes?
And are any of the big brand efforts making it easier?
Your typical running shoe can contain
about 40 different parts and dozens of different materials.
These include plastic, nylon, metal, rubber,
and something called ethylene-vinyl acetate
that's basically a kind of foam.
For most mass-produced shoes,
the layers are held together with powerful glue.
And that's what makes these products so hard
to break down and recycle.
Getting rid of the glue is important,
because any remaining sticky residue
would contaminate the separated materials.
And shoemakers need these materials in their purest form
to make new shoes.
Entrepreneurs Danny Pormes and his wife, Erna,
say they found a way to recycle
every single part of the shoe.
Narrator: The company, FastFeetGrinded,
or FFG for short,
gets shoes from the Dutch military,
from collection boxes in stores,
and sometimes directly from manufacturers.
They pay FFG to dispose of defective shoes
or pairs returned by customers.
First, you need to separate them by type.
FFG operates a completely automated mechanical system
that doesn't use chemicals, like glue solvents,
to separate the different components.
Danny tried everything from microwave ovens to irons.
Narrator: In the end, a series of machines
that use heat and friction
proved to be the most effective method.
Narrator: One machine heats the shoes to remove the glue.
Then another separates the different materials.
Beyond using heat and friction,
the company wouldn't share any further details
about its process.
But we do know that the final products are separated by type,
with the foam and rubber
being ground down into tiny particles.
Narrator: FFG also isolates the other materials
from the shoe,
like fabric from the uppers that can be spun into yarn
to make new shoelaces
and metals from steel-toed safety shoes.
Danny and Erna started their recycling journey
in their running shop.
Narrator: They opened their shoe store,
Runnersworld Hoorn, in 2004,
offering tailored recommendations to customers
depending on their style of running.
Danny, an ex-Marine, won contracts
to supply Dutch soldiers with sneakers.
And then ...
Narrator: FFG also partnered with Asics
to figure out how to make new sneakers from old ones.
But shoemakers say recycled materials come with limitations.
Romy: If we take our our highest-performance running shoe,
making that entirely from circular recycled materials,
it won't have the same functional properties still.
Narrator: For now,
the shoes Asics makes from old materials
are not meant for high-performance running.
Our ultimate goal would be
that they are just as functional,
just as good as all our running products.
And hopefully, it will not be just a cool side project,
but something that we can really implement
into the way we make shoes at large.
Narrator: Companies around the world
are trying to figure out how to make a less wasteful shoe.
Adidas, which makes more than 420 million pairs
of shoes every year,
has a couple of products in development.
In 2015, the company began making sneakers and other apparel
using plastic garbage collected from the ocean.
The plastic gets crushed into flakes,
heated, and cooled into pellets
before being spun into a polyester filament
that can be used to make the sneaker's uppers.
But that still leaves us with a shoe
that can't be entirely recycled.
In 2021, Adidas unveiled a shoe
made entirely out of virgin plastic
with no glue holding it together.
The Futurecraft Loop was designed to be recycled
into future generations of the same shoe.
Adidas says that using only one material
lets it break down the shoe and recycle it
without fear of contaminants.
But the plan only works
if the company can convince customers
to return the old pairs.
While big companies experiment with recyclable sneakers,
researchers at UC San Diego have looked at making footwear
from biodegradable materials.
Steve Mayfield and his team turned to algae
for an environmentally friendly flip-flop.
They are the most efficient
photosynthetic organisms on the planet.
Narrator: In 2021, we visited Steve's lab in San Diego.
The process for turning algae into flip-flops
is surprisingly simple.
The shoe consists of a footbed made from flexible foam,
an outsole made of a more rigid foam,
and a cotton strap.
To make the foam pieces,
the researchers use an industrial machine
to mix together compounds created from algae oil.
Steve: This is the same machine you'd see
if you went into any one of the shoe manufacturers
in the world.
We want to make sure that the research
and the work we do here is relevant to the real world,
to the commercial world.
Narrator: The machine pours the mixture into molds.
The team then applies heat,
and the foam expands into the shape of a shoe.
They wait about 10 minutes for the foam to cure,
then peel the pieces out and assemble the finished product.
Steve: You put the strap through here
and then put the back two parts here.
You glue that on, and then this entire thing glues.
And that's it. That's all the shoe is.
So the manufacturing of these things
is also really straightforward.
Narrator: The sandal is 100% biodegradable.
It takes three to six months
to break down in a compost pile.
Or if it ends up in the ocean, it would take about a year.
Steve and his team have partnered with the brand Reef
and plan to sell an algae sandal by the summer of 2024.
Over in India, another entrepreneur
is inverting this process.
Instead of saving shoes from the landfill,
he's turning the landfill into shoes.
Ashay Bhave started Thaely in 2021,
when he was just 23 years old.
We profiled his business later that year.
Ashay: "Thaely" because it is the Hindi word for plastic bags.
Narrator: Each pair contains 10 plastic bags
and 12 bottles.
They clean the bags in a hot tub filled only with water,
without any added chemicals,
and then hang them out to dry.
Inside the warehouse,
Sairuddin stacks eight to 10 layers of bags at a time,
then places the pile under a heat press.
This finished product will cover most of the sneaker.
The company's founder calls it ThaelyTex.
Ashay: So it's a material that's made entirely
out of base plastic bags without the use of any chemicals.
Narrator: Sairuddin packs and ships them
seven hours north
to the Nitush footwear factory.
That's where the shoe will be assembled.
First, ThaelyTex sheets are die-cut using metal forms.
Other patterns are cut from rPET fabric,
which is made from recycled bottles,
and woven into something like canvas.
The workers stitch the two types of materials together.
The assembled upper gets stretched out.
Thaely's soles are made from crumbs of industrial rubber.
A worker needs to rough the sole on this grinder
so the glue added to the next step will adhere.
They coat the top of the sole with a clear glue.
A special UV light increases its stickiness.
The shoes go through a series of heat treatments and coats
to strengthen the bond between the sole and the upper.
Then comes the final round of stitching.
Thaely's laces are also made from recycled plastic.
This factory employs 170 people
and makes shoes for three different companies.
Ashay: We wanted to make sure that we're still using
existing sneaker manufacturing techniques.
We didn't want to reinvent the wheel.
Narrator: Nitush turns out
15,000 pairs of shoes every week,
and they try to recycle everything, even scraps.
Ashay: It's recycled, and some of it is also reused
to make more ThaelyTex sheets.
Narrator: The company sold 300 pairs of sneakers
in its first month
and says the shoes are built to last.
Ashay: It's extremely durable.
It lasts like any other sneaker,
for about two to three years,
depending on how it is used.
Narrator: Back in the Netherlands, Willem Tertoole's company
is using old shoe materials
on a new mini soccer pitch.
Narrator: Workers mix the ground shoes
with a polymer binder
and spread it over a concrete foundation
to provide a soft and bouncy surface for play.
It's a fitting new life for many of the sneakers
that may have been worn by the people who play here.
A company called Xclusive International
turns FFG's materials into displays,
like these ones at Asics headquarters.
We're bringing between 45% and 60%
of the grind in the material,
and we bring them back in this sheet material.
This is specific PVC from Dr. Martens, also.
Here you can see the yellow stitching back in the re-grind.
Narrator: Back at FFG,
Danny and Erna are still honing their process,
occasionally with the help of their four children.
The family has faced many hurdles,
including a fire that completely gutted
their first recycling plant in 2022.
Narrator: But within 10 months,
their new facility was already up and running.