German sportswear manufacturer adidas (Herzogenaurach; www.adidas-group.com) has developed its first 100% recyclable running shoe. “‘Futurecraft Loop’ is our first running shoe that is made to be remade,” said Eric Liedtke, adidas executive board member responsible for global brands. “It is 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.”

Each of the shoe’s components is made from reusable TPU, which is spun to yarn, knitted, moulded and clean-fused to a “Boost” midsole using adidas’s “Speedfactory” automated technology. Adidas’s Boost is a cushioning technology made from hundreds of TPU foam pellets. Once the sneakers reach the end of their first life, they are returned to adidas for collection and recycling, where they are washed, ground to pellets and melted to make the parts for a new pair of shoes.

Adidas is rolling out its first-generation Futurecraft Loop shoe, which is made of a single type of material and contains no glue, as part of a global beta programme. The German company is working with partners, collaborators and consumers – which it terms creators – to customise, personalise and tailor their own designs. As such, adidas is challenging 200 creators from major cities around the world to run, return the shoes and share their feedback ahead of the second-generation phase. The company said it will gather feedback from these creators to help define the consumer experience, including the process of returning the shoes so it can determine how this will work commercially. Adidas said it wanted to make the process as “convenient and frictionless as possible for the consumer.”

During the beta phase, BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com) will recycle the used shoes in Ludwigshafen, while adidas will assemble new shoes at its Speedfactory in Atlanta, Georgia / USA. Adidas said it is actively looking at additional recycling locations as it plans for a wider commercial rollout – it intends to use the insights from the beta programme to shape the roadmap for a wider release, which it is targeting for spring/summer 2021.

The Futurecraft Loop project is aimed at tackling the problem of plastics waste, enabling a closed loop where raw materials can be repeatedly repurposed. Together with partner Parley for the Oceans (New York, New York / USA; www.parley.tv), adidas introduced in 2015 its first performance footwear concept with an upper made entirely of yarns and filaments reclaimed and recycled from marine plastic waste and illegal deep-sea gillnets – see Plasteurope.com of 27.04.2015.

Adidas said it will produce 11m pairs of shoes in 2019 with ocean plastics from intercepting waste on beaches, remote islands and coastal communities. The sportswear giant has pledged to use only recycled polyester in every product and application where a solution exists by 2024 – see Plasteurope.com of 27.07.2018.