Reducing footwear waste

going to landfill
The number of shoes produced internationally is increasing every
year. As a result, there is an enormous amount of waste produced
by the footwear industry currently being disposed of in landfill sites
around the world. The issue of footwear end-of-life waste is
currently being tackled in a number of ways: i) reusing, for example
by donating used items to a local charity or as foreign aid; ii)
repairing: iii) recycling parts such as the laces; and iv) considering
the use of recyclable or biodegradable materials in production.
Leather, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyurethane (PU) and vulcanised
rubber may all contain chemicals that potentially pose a problem to
landfill sites. The three main areas of the footwear industry that
produce waste are supply, manufacture and post-consumer. Lean
manufacturing initiatives and the use of systems such as
SATRASumm and SATRA VisionStitch are well established and have
led to a reduction in supply and manufacturing waste. Post-
consumer waste has been an issue for some time but with the rapid
rise of consumerism and its impact on the environment a sense of
urgency to find practical solutions is growing.

With the development of technologies and the increasing use of

‘performance’ materials and components in footwear, typically only
specific parts can be recycled. This is quite an issue, as a shoe may
contain many different materials and adhesives which cannot be
reused or recycled. The footwear must, therefore, be deconstructed.

Supporting the environment

As well as trying to identify technologies and methods to help
brands and manufacturers produce more sustainable products,
SATRA continually seeks ways to improve its own operations and
reduce negative impact on the environment. One example is the
way we now dispose of waste product and materials after testing.
Around 400kg of waste footwear items are collected from SATRA
each month by a local recycling company. It is destroyed securely,
ground up in a ‘can baler’ with an integrated magnetic separator,
and then turned into a dry pellet form to be used as ‘refuse-derived
fuel’ (RDF). A certificate of destruction is provided at the end for
SATRA’s records.
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A solid waste treatment plant where RDF is produced

Changing shoes into fuel

RDF technology produces energy from waste that is unsuitable for
traditional recycling and that would be sent to landfill if not
shredded and repurposed. In the RDF manufacturing process, non-
combustible materials such as glass and metals are removed, after
which an ‘air knife’ is used to separate lightweight materials from
heavy items. The light materials – including some plastics – have
higher calorific value and are used to produce the final fuel, while
currently the heavy materials normally continue to a landfill
(although taking up less volume than otherwise would be the case).

The items destined to become RDF are shredded into a uniform

homogeneous material, which can be used as a plain mixture or
compressed into pellets, ‘bricks’ or ‘logs’. This can become a
substitute for fossil fuels in the production of cement or lime or as a
reduction agent in steel furnaces. RDF can also be used in a variety
of ways to produce electricity, such as alongside traditional sources
of fuel in coal power plants. Utilised in this way, RDF technology
provides a way to recover a significant amount of waste while at the
same time contributing to the generation of energy.
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RDF pellets awaiting despatch

Since the 1950s, when tyres were used as RDF in the cement
industry, the technology has continued to improve. During the
eighties, the German Cement Works Association began to document
the use of alternative fuels in the national cement industry. While in
1987 less than 5 per cent of fossil fuels were replaced by RDF, its
use had increased by 2015 to almost 62 per cent.

Recycling doesn’t just stop at footwear and we look to recycle as

much as possible from all the product sectors in which SATRA
actively tests. Certain mattresses and pillows which previously
would have gone to landfill are now shredded and made into
packaging material. Elsewhere, we are investigating what personal
protective equipment (PPE) might be converted into RDF now and in
the future.

Repurposing components
Alhess | Dreamstime.com
New technologies can help to reduce the amount of footwear going to landfill

There are many parts of footwear and clothing that can be reused
for other purposes. The Phoenix Resource Centre is an
environmental charity working in 61 countries that examines
industrial waste and tries to reuse it as foreign aid, mostly in
Djibouti and Ghana. All reused products are traceable and cannot be
resold. Products that aren’t sent out as foreign aid, because they
have sensitive branding or are damaged, are stripped of all parts
that can be repurposed, including laces, eyelets, zips, buttons and
stuffing and passed to schools and similar institutions as arts and
crafts supplies. The charity works purely with volunteer workers,
and has forged partnerships with a number of other organisations.
Its resource centre is also used as a respite to help people with
carers become more employable and give them opportunities in life.

There are many ways in which the footwear industry can become
more sustainable. If you are interested in this topic, it may be
worthwhile reviewing previous SATRA Bulletin articles, including
‘Recycling and recyclability’ and ‘Sustainability in footwear
production’. Alternatively, please feel free to contact us at any time
with any specific requirements or if you wish to explore a project.