
Adidas created a shoe that is literally made out of trash
Adidas has announced their creation of a prototype for a sustainable new shoe that is made almost completely out of recycled garbage collected from the ocean. The upper shoe is created from yarns and filaments derived from illegal deep-sea gillnet, as well as other ocean waste, while the base is made from sustainable cushioning material.
The prototype is the result of Adidas’ recent partnership with Parley for the Oceans, an organization whose aim is to end pollution of the world’s oceans.
“We are extremely proud that Adidas is joining us in this mission and is putting its creative force behind this partnership to show that it is possible to turn ocean plastic into something cool,” Parley founder Cyrill Gutsch said.
However, collecting garbage from the ocean to assemble the shoe was not an easy task. A collaborator, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, helped to retrieve the trash over the course of a 110-day expedition while tracking an illegal poaching vessel off the coast of West Africa. The green fishing nets collected during the voyage are evident in the design of the upper shoe.
A spokeswoman for Adidas mentioned that the shoe, however, was not for sale, and was uncertain if it will be in the near future. “This is not a plan, this is an action,” she said. “We did this to show what we are capable of doing when we all put our heads together.”
Nevertheless, she confirmed that by early next year (2017), the company would begin to incorporate recycled plastic into their shoes.