Narrator: These sneakers are made
with garbage.
The company that makes them says
each pair contains 10 plastic bags and 12 bottles.
For $110, they'll ship them anywhere in the world.
But can footwear made from trash
compete in the over $70 billion sneaker industry?
We went to India to meet the young entrepreneur
making sneakers from worldwide waste.
23-year-old Ashay Bhave launched Thaely in July 2021.
Ashay: Thaely because it is the Hindi word
for plastic bags.
Narrator: At first, Bhave struggled to gather materials,
even though trash in India ends up in all kinds of places.
Ashay: I assumed that it would be easy
to find, you know, waste, plastic bags,
but that wasn't the case.
Narrator: So Bhave partnered
with a waste-removal company that hires ragpickers.
Those are people who collect recyclables from the street
to sell for cash.
Triotap Technologies offers them a steady paycheck
and an indoor sorting space.
Narrator: 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 ...
Narrator: ... 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 waste plastic bags
without the use of any chemicals.
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 with crumbs of industrial rubber.
A worker needs to rough the sole on this grinder
so the glue added in 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 with 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.
You know, 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: That's recycled,
and some of it is also reused
to make more ThaelyTex sheets.
Narrator: The tote bag used as packaging
is made from four plastic bottles,
and the shoebox made from recycled paper has seeds in it.
Customers can cut the box, plant it in soil,
and grow a basil seedling in about two weeks.
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: But can a small company like this
compete with worldwide brands?
Several have launched shoes
from recycled plastic in recent years.
Nike launched the Space Hippie,
a shoe made with recycled materials, in June 2020.
Adidas makes a shoe that incorporates ocean plastic.
The company says it will produce 17 million pairs of them
in 2021.
That means it's likely that a global brand like Adidas
sold more recycled sneakers in an hour
than Thaely has sold since the company launched.
But Bhave is undeterred.
And he says the business is already profitable.
Ashay: This is a project that is going to fund itself,
and at the same time,
it's going to help enrich the lives
of the sanitation workers that we work with,
and you know, the factory that we work with.
Narrator: Bhave got the idea for Thaely
when he was in business school.
Ashay: We had a "Shark Tank"-like competition
in my university, and I had this opportunity
to make my design project into a real business idea.
Narrator: He says private investors
funded the launch of his business.
The name of the Y2K Pro shoe
is a reference to the early 2000s.
He was inspired by basketball and skate shoes from that era,
even though at that time, he had a toddler-sized foot.
It seems like Thaely is onto something with the idea
of how to add value to discarded bags.
Starting in September 2021,
Indian authorities required all plastic-bag makers
to manufacture thicker bags.
The idea is that more durable bags are easier to recycle
and that ragpickers will be more likely to collect them.
And once a customer is through with a Thaely sneaker,
Bhave says they can send it back to the company
for a discount.
Ashay: This allows us to responsibly recycle them.
We refurbish them, and we're donating them to charities
and refugee camps.