Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

The Independent's journalism is supported by our readers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn commission.

Adidas creates running trainer that is 100% recyclable

‘The next step is to end the concept of waste entirely’

Friday 19 April 2019 18:46 BST

✕

Willow Smith stars in the Adidas Futurecraft recyclable trainer campaign

Adidas has unveiled its very first running shoe that’s entirely recyclable.

The Futurecraft.Loop trainer is the latest innovation from the sportswear brand.

The shoe is made from just one material: a form of thermoplastic polyurethane, which is then assembled with glue.

The aim of the shoe, once heavily worn, is to be recycled and repurposed so adidas can use its material to create a new pair of trainers.

“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.

Adidas has unveiled its first fully recyclable running shoe (adidas) (Adidas)

“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 said the sports company wishes to “end the concept of waste entirely”.

“Our dream is that you can keep wearing the same shoes over and over again,” he added.

Tanyaradzwa Sahanga, manager in technology innovation at adidas, outlined how the brand embarked on creating a new type of product for its customers.

“We knew this was a far-reaching vision in every way, technically and even behaviourally! There were times when it didn’t seem like we could get over some of the technical hurdles – now we’ve made the first leap, the playing field has changed.”

Willow Smith stars in the Futurecraft.Loop recyclable shoe campaign (adidas) (Adidas)

In 2015, adidas and environmental organisation Parley for the Oceans manufactured a performance trainer with an upper layer made from recycled marine plastic waste.

This year, the sportswear brand plans to produce 11 million pairs of shoes from plastic materials intercepted in coastal areas.

The Futurecraft.Loop shoe is first going to be released by adidas to “200 leading creators from across the world’s major cities”, who will provide the company with feedback on the footwear.

The trainer will then become available to the wider public for spring/summer in 2021.

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

Show all 15

1/15Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

A father and son on a makeshift boat made from styrofoam paddle through a garbage filled river as they collect plastic bottles that they can sell in junkshops in Manila. The father and son team earn some three US dollars a day retrieving recyclables from the river.

AFP/Getty

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

A composite image of items found on the shore of the Thames Estuary in Rainham, Kent. Tons of plastic and other waste lines areas along the Thames Estuary shoreline, an important feeding ground for wading birds and other marine wildlife.

Getty Images

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

Children collect plastic water bottles among the garbage washed ashore at the Manila Bay. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, at current rates of pollution, there will likely be more plastic in the sea than fish by 2050.

AFP/Getty

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

Plastics and other detritus line the shore of the Thames Estuary. In December 2017 Britain joined the other 193 UN countries and signed up to a resolution to help eliminate marine litter and microplastics in the sea. It is estimated that about eight million metric tons of plastic find their way into the world's oceans every year. Once in the Ocean plastic can take hundreds of years to degrade, all the while breaking down into smaller and smaller 'microplastics,' which can be consumed by marine animals, and find their way into the human food chain.

Getty

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

A dump site in Manila in 2013. The Philippines financial capital banned disposable plastic shopping bags and styrofoam food containers, as part of escalating efforts across the nation's capital to curb rubbish that exacerbates deadly flooding.

AFP/Getty Images

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

Children swims in the sea full of garbage in North Jakarta, Indonesia.

Getty

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

An Indian woman holds a jar filled with Yamuna river water polluted with froth and toxic foam to be used for rituals at the river bank in New Delhi, India. The Yamuna River, like all other holy rivers in India, has been massively polluted for decades now. The river that originates in a glacier in the pristine and unpolluted Himalayas, and flows through Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh before merging with the Ganges River in Allahabad, once used to be the lifeline of the Indian capital. Currently, it is no more than a large, open sewer that is choking with industrial and domestic discharge that includes plastic, flowers and debris and has virtually no aquatic life.

EPA

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

Plastic waste is washed up on South Troon beach in Scotland. Recent reports by scientists have confirmed, plastics dumped in the world oceans are reaching a dangerous level with micro plastic particles now being found inside filter feeding animals and amongst sand grains on our beaches.

Getty

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

Children collect plastic to be sold and recycled, in a polluted river in suburban Manila. The city's trash disposal agency traps solid waste floating down waterways that was thrown into the water by residents of slums along riverbanks upstream.

AFP/Getty

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

View of the Carpayo Beach in La Punta, Callao, some 15 km of Lima. In 2013, the NGO VIDA labeled the Carpayo Beach as the most polluted in the country - 40 tons of trash on each 500m2.

AFP/Getty

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

Trash from Kamilo Beach in Hawaii.

Gabriella Levine/Flickr

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

A scavenger collects plastic cups for recycling in a river covered with rubbish near Pluit dam in Jakarta.

Reuters

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

Rubbish fills Omoa beach in Honduras. Floating masses of garbage offshore from some of the Caribbean's pristine beaches are testimony to a vast and growing problem of plastic pollution heedlessly dumped in our oceans, locals, activists and experts say.

AFP/Getty

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

A man climbs down to a garbage filled river in Manila. Plastic rubbish will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050 unless the world takes drastic action to recycle the material, a report warned in 2016.

AFP/Getty

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures

Garbage on East Beach, Henderson Island (Pitcairn Islands), in the south Pacific Ocean. The uninhabited island has been found to have the world's highest density of waste plastic, with more than 3,500 additional pieces of litter washing ashore daily at just one of its beaches.

EPA

To check out six eco-friendly high street fashion brands ideal for environmental shoppers, click here.

For all the latest fashion news, click here.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies