Global sportswear brand Adidas has strengthened its commitment to tackling plastic waste with the unveiling of Futurecraft.Loop, its first 100 percent recyclable performance running shoe. “Taking plastic waste out of the system is the first step, but we can’t stop there,” said Eric Liedtke, executive board member at Adidas, responsible for global brands in a statement. “What happens to your shoes after you’ve worn them out? You throw them away – except there is no away. There are only landfills and incinerators and ultimately an atmosphere choked with excess carbon, or oceans filled with plastic waste.” Liedtke added: “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.” Adidas is calling its Futurecraft.Loop a “breakthrough” to unlocking a circular future for sports by allowing its recyclable performance running shoe to be returned to Adidas, broken down and reused to create new performance running shoes. While sports footwear typically includes complex material mixes and component gluing, which means that a shoe can only be downcycled, Adidas has stated that after a decade of research and development alongside leading material development, manufacturing and recycling partners across Asia, Europe and North America, it has found a way to change the process. Futurecraft.Loop has been designed from the outset to be remade, by using one material type and no glue, added the sportswear brand, with each component made from 100 percent reusable TPU that is spun to yarn, knitted, moulded and clean-fused to a Boost midsole using Adidas Speedfactory technology. Once the shoes come to the end of their first life and are returned to Adidas, they are then washed, ground to pellets and melted into material for components for a new pair of shoes, meaning zero waste and nothing thrown away.
