{"id":18846,"date":"2015-08-19T12:11:37","date_gmt":"2015-08-19T16:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=18846"},"modified":"2015-08-19T12:11:37","modified_gmt":"2015-08-19T16:11:37","slug":"are-shoes-designed-for-recycling-just-around-the-corner-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/are-shoes-designed-for-recycling-just-around-the-corner-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Shoes Designed For Recycling Just Around The Corner? [Video]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I often get asked &#8220;Why can&#8217;t I recycle __________? It&#8217;s made mostly from [aluminum\/glass\/plastic]. It&#8217;s even got a recycling symbol on it.&#8221; The answer, almost inevitably, comes down the word &#8220;mostly&#8221; appearing in the second sentence &#8211; products made from a mix of materials can be very difficult to break down into &#8220;pure&#8221; plastic, glass, aluminum, and other materials that recyclers can handle.<\/p>\n<p>Now take a look at your shoes, and take a guess at how many different kinds of materials are present. It can be as many as 60, meaning this particular product can really only be downcycled into playing courts or <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2015\/08\/recycle-shoes-into-fuel-new-plant-shreds-shoe-waste-for-burning\/\">fuel<\/a>. If you could make a shoe from a single material, you might be able to just toss it into your recycling\u00a0bin with your other materials &#8211; no disassembly required! But that&#8217;s not possible&#8230; right?<\/p>\n<p>Ammo Liao thinks it is, and developed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dezeen.com\/2015\/07\/12\/ammo-liao-recyclable-bio-knit-trainers-royal-college-of-art-graduate\/\">the Bio-Knit shoe concept<\/a> as a student at London&#8217;s Royal College of Art. He approached the task of making a shoe not from a traditional manufacturing perspective, but, rather, from a <a href=\"http:\/\/biomimicry.org\/what-is-biomimicry\/\">biomimicry<\/a> approach. Liao observed that nature doesn&#8217;t necessarily create tons of different materials for different purposes; rather, a single material can be adjusted though the application of heat, pressure, or other inputs into something that meets a specific need. And, of course, nothing in the natural world gets wasted: waste becomes food.<\/p>\n<p>With that mindset in place, Liao knitted the upper of the shoes from a polymer yarn, and then created inners and soles by playing with that knitted material. The result is a lightweight shoe made from a single material.<\/p>\n<p>If you think this is just an academic exercise, think again: major shoe companies like Adidas and Nike are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcoexist.com\/3027386\/the-race-to-create-knitted-shoes-that-cut-the-wastefulness-of-our-footwear\">experimenting with knitting<\/a> for a variety of purposes&#8230; perhaps this will hit their radar.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the video above, which takes you through the process of making the Bio-Knit shoe, and then let us know what you think.<\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcoexist.com\/3049288\/these-knitted-sneakers-can-be-recycled-as-easily-as-a-water-bottle\">Co.EXIST<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Image credit: Screen capture from Bio-Knit video<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Student Ammo Liao looked at how nature handles materials, and used this mindset to create Bio-Knit shoes, which can go right into the recycling bin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":18847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[5232,8453,8451,143,5661,1227,39,8452,504],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Shoes Designed for Recycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Student Ammo Liao looked at how nature handles materials, and used this mindset to create Bio-Knit shoes, which can go right into the recycling bin.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/are-shoes-designed-for-recycling-just-around-the-corner-video\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shoes Designed for Recycling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Student Ammo Liao looked at how nature handles materials, and used this mindset to create Bio-Knit shoes, which can go right into the recycling bin.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/are-shoes-designed-for-recycling-just-around-the-corner-video\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-08-19T16:11:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bio-knit-shoes-made-for-recycling.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"618\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"345\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeff McIntire-Strasburg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeff McIntire-Strasburg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/are-shoes-designed-for-recycling-just-around-the-corner-video\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/are-shoes-designed-for-recycling-just-around-the-corner-video\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jeff McIntire-Strasburg\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/#\/schema\/person\/9b578e764fdaeb0c31f2d565d3f02b30\"},\"headline\":\"Are Shoes Designed For Recycling Just Around The Corner? 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