By Sarah Currie-Halpern, Co-Founder and Partner, Think Zero LLC
If the shoe fits, buy it in every color—or maybe don’t, considering the ballooning problem of shoe waste.
Shoes are a sticky spot within the larger conversation around fashion waste and recycling. That’s no small problem, considering how important shoes have been to human life and work since time immemorial. Archaeologists have found well-preserved moccasins from 5,500 years ago. Evidence of platform shoes dates back to Ancient Egypt. The high heel initially rose to prominence in the 10th century, favored by calvary riders to keep their feet in stirrups. By the 17th century, they’d become a status symbol for upper class European men. The rest, as they say, is blistered history.
If we’ve been a shoe-happy species for most of our collective existence, then now we’re a shoe-addicted one. According to Straits Research, the global footwear market reached $405.9 billion in 2023, with projections showing an increase to $592.9 billion by 2032. All in all, 23 billion shoes are produced annually across the globe. What this looks like on the opposite end is 22 billion shoes being discarded annually, with 95% going into landfills and incinerators. Once inside the landfill, shoes can take between 40 and 1,000 years to decompose.
Modern shoes tend to be constructed from multiple materials. Most sneakers are made out of varied combinations of textiles, synthetics, rubber, foam, and plastic. A Doc Marten boot has PVC plastic soles, a leather body, and a woven back tag. Wood, plastic, suede, and embellishments of every kind from sparkles to spikes to ribbons go into high heels. In every case, the individual materials are glued, stitched, and molded together (and sometimes coated after the fact) which makes separating them especially difficult.
The combination of materials in each individual shoe, together with the ways those materials are bound together, makes recycling a struggle. Dismantling shoes one by one is a time-intensive process that can’t be easily automated given the enormous variety of shoes being tossed away. One solution growing in popularity is shredding shoes, and then sorting the fragments by density. In recent years, shoe brands have offered some novelty solutions in the service of good PR, such as Nike’s construction of a basketball court in Hong Kong using 20,000 used sneakers. Other companies are now touting biodegradable or bio-based shoes, such as Blueview and Vivobarefoot, but end of life recyclability still remains a question mark.
These solutions certainly aren’t enough to solve the enormous problem of 22 billion shoes discarded annually, with billions more already breaking down in landfills and in the environment, emitting toxic fumes. Part of the solution necessarily lies in promoting conscious consumption and repairing shoes whenever possible rather than discarding. Another part lies with manufacturers, who must start using more sustainable and recyclable or compostable materials instead of plastics doomed to languish in the landfill for a millennium. Figuring out the shoe recycling conundrum must be a joint effort among manufacturers, consumers, and recyclers. So if the shoe fits, maybe just stick to buying one pair for now.
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