The shoe recycling machine made by Fastfeetgrinded makes it possible to produce completely circular shoes. But so far only in the color brown.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIn the early days, we took shoes apart by hand and put the materials in the microwave or in a pan on the stove,\u201d says Danny Pormes of Fastfeetgrinded when he first started trying to recycle footwear five years ago. Nowadays, there is a machine that processes 2500 shoes per hour.<\/p>\n
The industry produces around 70 million shoes every day. And for every pair sold, another pair is discarded. Since footwear is often made of many different materials, recycling is difficult. That is why old shoes are often shipped to Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe, where they end up in landfills or incinerators. Pormes and his partners thought that this was a wasted opportunity.<\/p>\n
Shoe recycling machine
\nFormer marine Pormes has a running shop and supplies sports shoes to the Dutch Ministry of Defence. Five years ago, the Ministry asked whether it was feasible to recycle shoes. Pormes and fellow marine David Uijtewaal got stuck into the problem and never let it go. And they succeeded. Fastfeetgrinded built the world\u2019s first ever footwear recycling machine, also known as the SRM: the Shoe Recyle Machine. \u201cThe SRM can process 2,500 shoes per hour,\u201d an enthused Pormes tells us over the phone. \u201d The shoe goes in on one side of the machine and on the other side, we separate it into three different materials: foam, rubber and textile. These come out in the form of granules or yarn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thank you for sharing this story! However, please do so in a way that respects the copyright of this text. If you want to share or reproduce this full text, please ask permission from Innovation Origins (partners@innovationorigins.com) or become a partner of ours! You are of course free to quote this story with source citation. Would you like to share this article in another way? Then use this link to the article: https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/en\/the-dutch-build-the-worlds-first-shoe-recycling-machine\/<\/p>\n
Asics, Decathlon and Bever
\nHow exactly does the apparatus work? \u201cThat\u2019s the secret of the blacksmith,\u201d Pormes laughs. \u201cThe system is patented and we want to develop it further ourselves.\u201d The machine has now attracted the attention of a wide range of well-known sports brands such as Asics, Decathlon and Bever. As a society, we need to reduce our use of raw materials by half by 2030. As a result, Pormes expects the demand for recycled materials to continue to rise.<\/p>\n
Growth at home and abroad
\nNot only is demand for the recyclate produced by SRM increasing. \u201d We are now receiving worn-out shoes from all over the Netherlands at our office in Susteren,\u201d says Pormes. \u201cIt is too much to process and we are short of space. So this week we decided to relocate. We will expand fivefold at the new location in Wieringerwerf.\u201d Plans for a second factory in the Netherlands are now in place. Germany is also on the agenda for Fastfeetgrinded.<\/p>\n
It will be some time before consumers can actually buy the first circular shoe. \u201cBut it is definitely possible,\u201d Pormes assures us. \u201cThere is a pair here on my desk. We don\u2019t want to build a brand, we are using the pair to show the industry that it is feasible.\u201d Because the shoe is made from a blend of coloured materials, the end result is predominantly brown for now. \u201cIf we were to add paint to it, the shoe would obviously no longer be 100 % circular. Fortunately, brown will probably come back into fashion on its own accord.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The shoe recycling machine made by Fastfeetgrinded makes it possible to produce completely circular shoes. But so far only in the color brown. Thank you for sharing this story! However, please do so in a way that respects the copyright of this text. If you want to share or reproduce this full text, please ask […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":73370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6038,984],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n