Footwear can indeed go on the sustainable path. Six years after they set out, two brothers have produced sneakers that are made of 97% natural materials.

Footwear is greatly different from a garment. It consists of a dozen different materials which become fused together during the manufacturing process making footwear difficult, if not impossible, to recycle. These materials differ greatly in composition and cannot be recycled because they cannot be separated. Additionally, there is a 20 per cent secondary waste created during manufacturing which does not get recycled and ends up in landfills.

One of the possible directions of developing a more sustainable product which we were considering was to develop a shoe made out of recycled materials such as recycled PET bottles and plastic waste. Our conclusion was that we did not want to put plastic materials back in the circulation.

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