Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

ENVIRONMENT

Germany’s Adidas turns to recycled material ‘to combat ocean plastic’

German sportswear giant Adidas said Tuesday more than half of the polyester used in its products this year would come from recycled material, including millions of shoes made from plastic waste.

Published: 22 January 2020 08:50 CET

Germany's Adidas turns to recycled material 'to combat ocean plastic'

Adidas shoes on display at the company's factory in Bavaria. Photo: DPA

In 2020, the share of recycled polyester in Adidas products will “exceed 50 percent for the first time”, the company said in a statement.

By 2024, Adidas “is committed to using only recycled polyester” across its entire range of shoes, clothing and other items like bags and shin guards.

READ ALSO: 'Tyres made from dandelions': Germany to invest billions in 'bio-economy'

The Bavarian company also said it aimed to churn out 15 to 20 million pairs of shoes in 2020 using recycled plastic waste collected “from beaches and coastal regions”.

The group already sold more than 11 million such pairs last year — still just a fraction of the more than 400 million pairs of shoes it makes annually.

Adidas said it was committed to battling the scourge of plastic waste “to stop the pollution of the world's oceans”.

The firm's first running shoe made entirely from recycled materials, the “Futurecraft Loop”, is set to hit stores in 2021.

Since 2015, it has collaborated with environmental organization Parley for the Oceans on a range of products, including football shirts for major clubs such as Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.

READ ALSO: Adidas to bring production home with robot shoe factory

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

READ ALSO:

The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa.

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology.

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces.

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

Url copied to clipboard!