DANVILLE - US textile recycling company Circ has launched a partnership with UK footwear brand Vivobarefoot to develop footwear uppers made entirely of polyester that can be chemically recycled and reused in the production of new footwear.
The hope is to reduce the estimated 20 billion pairs of shoes which end up in landfill each year, partly because their many different components and materials make them difficult to recycle.
Some footwear brands already use mechanical recycling to provide alternative end-of-use pathways for their shoes but often the resulting products cannot be recycled in the future.
