Fashion for good shares the first major output of Closing the Footwear Loop project: The Phase 1 report, was developed in partnership with Circle Economy.

This report dives deep into the material flow, composition analysis and condition of post-consumer footwear waste, capturing the on-ground findings from our pilots with CETIA, Matoha, Picvisa, and The 8 Impact, and translating them into actionable insights for the industry. 

Some of the findings: 

• 50% of post-consumer footwear waste is non-rewearable
• 46% of post-consumer footwear waste is rewearable, and the remaining 4% is contaminated, hindering rewearability and recyclability 
• 90% of rewearable footwear is exported, mostly to the UAE, China, and Pakistan
• 24% of shoes classified as non-rewearable had no physical damage
• 37.7% of non-renewable sole materials were unidentifiable by NIR scanning

France is the frontrunner EU country with a footwear-specific EPR scheme. THE 8 IMPACT and successfully recycled sports shoes and sneakers using EPR feedstock, demonstrates that closed-loop recycling for these archetypes is technically possible.

The full report is available now: press@fashionforgood.com.