Recyclable Running Shoe Unveiled By Adidas
Sportswear giant adidas has unveiled FUTURECRAFT.LOOP, a new running shoe that is 100% recyclable.
The company said that 200 individuals will test out the shoe – which is made from a single material, TPU – and provide feedback as part of adidas’ broadest ever global beta trial.
It is then hoped that the shoe will be released to the public in the first half of 2021, with adidas targeting a full commercial launch in the spring or the summer.
The shoe has been created after nearly a decade of research and development by adidas alongside its material development, manufacturing and recycling partners across Asia, Europe and North America.
Given their traditionally complex combination of materials and component gluing, recycling running shoes has previously been out of reach for sportswear providers, adidas said.
However, with the FUTURECRAFT.LOOP created with one material and without glue through adidas’ SPEEDFACTORY technology, shoes that are eventually returned to the company by the user can be washed, ground to pellets and melted into material for a new pair.
The company added that each generation of the shoe would be “designed to meet the adidas sports performance standard, without compromise”.
The company’s Executive Board Member, Eric Liedtke, who is responsible for global brands, said that FUTURECRAFT.LOOP represents “a statement of our intent to take responsibility for the entire life of our product; proof that we can build high-performance running shoes that you don’t have to throw away”.
Liedtke (pictured) added: “Taking plastic waste out of the system is the first step, but we can’t stop there. The next step is to end the concept of ‘waste’ entirely. Our dream is that you can keep wearing the same shoes over and over again.”
The announcement by adidas comes just days before the largest annual mass-participation running event in the UK, the London Marathon, where a number of sustainability initiatives, including a series of closed-loop recycling projects, have been lined up.
