There are 20 billion pairs of shoes made annually, and 90% of these end up in landfills. Fashion for Good is a leading platform for innovation and collaboration within businesses to create an ecosystem of stakeholders that ensures that products are transitioning into a circular business model from the traditional current "take-make-discard" linear model. Their Closing the Loop project is a pivotal initiative designed to address the massive waste problem that plagues traditional fashion systems.
Image Source: Pexels, Safi Erneste
The Problem: Fashion's environmental impact
The footwear industry is a major contributor to the landfill and contributes to 2-3% of CO2 emissions worldwide. Footwear is also created using a variation of different materials like plastics, chemicals like glue, and synthetic materials that are difficult to recycle. The growing demand for cheap, disposable fashion contributes to the fast turnover of footwear styles, resulting in shoes being discarded after only a few months of wear.
This throwaway culture adds to the increasing waste issues. The difficulty doesn't only lie in landfills, there is also widespread water and chemical pollution. The footwear industry relies on chemical dyes, solvents, and adhesives during the manufacturing process. These substances, when not disposed of properly, can contaminate water sources, harming ecosystems and communities.
Image Source: Pexels, Faith Turan
Fashion for Good's Closing the Loop: A Circular Solution
Fashion for Good has united fourteen brands that are placing efforts into sustainability and circular systems some of these being: adidas, Dr. Martens, Zalando, PUMA, and Lululemon to name a few. Unlike other fashion sectors where innovation has been more easily adopted, the complex design and use of multiple materials in footwear make it challenging to sort, dismantle, and recycle efficiently—hindering the transition from a linear to a circular economy.
Fashion for Good’s “Closing the Loop” project aims to tackle footwear waste through three main goals: mapping European post-consumer waste streams to understand material composition and recyclability, developing circular design principles for sustainable and recyclable footwear, and scouting innovative end-of-life solutions to identify scalable, impactful technologies for footwear recycling.
Image Source: Pexels, Safi Erneste
There are multiple stakeholders taking part in this project from all parts of the supply chain and manufacturing process. THE 8 IMPACT specializes in producing high-performance recycled elastomers from used sports equipment and sneakers. Each year, 250,000 tons of sneakers in Europe are collected but not recycled. The company focuses on turning these materials, which are often incinerated or exported, into valuable resources for footwear manufacturing.
Picvisa is a company focused on sustainability through advanced technology in waste management, particularly in the recycling industry. They specialize in providing AI-based solutions like optical sorting and the introduction of robotics for sorting and optimizing waste, enabling more efficient recycling processes. Picvisa and The 8 IMPACT are large stakeholders in the Close The Loop project in terms of sourcing and preparing resources for other manufacturers to reuse in products.
Image Source: Pexels, Victor Moragriega
Circularity in Footwear and Fashion
Circularity in footwear aims to close this loop by ensuring that shoes can be easily disassembled, reused, or recycled, turning waste into valuable resources. The impact of circularity in footwear could be profound in the future. By adopting circular principles, footwear companies could significantly reduce their environmental footprint, conserving resources, reducing carbon emissions, and minimizing the amount of waste sent to landfills.
To fully realize the potential of circularity, the creation of an interconnected ecosystem is crucial. This means bringing together manufacturers, consumers, recyclers, and other stakeholders to collaborate and share information, resources, and technologies, Fashion for Good is setting the stage for transformation in the industry.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):
What can consumers do to support the 'Closing the Loop' initiative?
Consumers play a key role by supporting brands and initiatives that prioritize circular design, recycling, and responsible production. They can also participate in take-back programs, where they return shoes to be recycled or repurposed.
What is the Closing the Loop project?
Closing the Loop is an initiative aimed at transforming the footwear industry into a circular economy by reducing waste and encouraging the recycling and reuse of materials. The project focuses on creating sustainable solutions for the end-of-life phase of footwear, enabling products to be reused, harvested for parts, or recycled into the production cycle.
