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Parley for the Ocean

Turning Ocean Waste into Footwear - Taiwan Makes it Possible

Turning Ocean Waste into Footwear - Taiwan Makes it Possible

Source:Parley for the Oceans

Every year, up to nine million tons of plastic waste ends up in the oceans, where it endangers marine life. However, a new green technology makes it possible to turn trash recovered from the sea into footwear material for another product life cycle. The secret behind this upcycling can be found in Taoyuan City’s Guanyin District.

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Turning Ocean Waste into Footwear - Taiwan Makes it Possible

By Kaiyuan Teng
From CommonWealth Magazine (vol. 612 )

The nine million tons of plastic trash that we dump into the oceans every year not only entangles sea animals but also finds its way into their stomachs.

Eager to find new approaches to reducing ocean waste, the non-governmental environmentalist group Parley for the Ocean joined hands with sports shoe brand Adidas to turn a prototype shoe made from ocean plastic into a consumer product. Adidas, in turn, enlisted the expertise of Taiwanese textile manufacturer Far Eastern New Century Corporation (FENC) to upcycle the plastic waste into a practical footwear material.

Before the new line of sneakers made the headlines, no one knew that the supplier who managed to turn ocean waste into a footwear material was based in Taiwan – this well-kept secret was only revealed in October of 2016.

“We actually just came up with this concept; we didn’t know how it would turn out. In the end, Taiwan got the job done,” says Kelli George, senior material manager for footwear materials at Adidas.

George has visited Taiwan on special trip to honor FENC with a sustainability award for its ability to develop the upcycled raw material from ocean waste in less than a year.

FENC has actually been a major supplier of recycled polyester yarn from PET bottles discarded on land to sports brand Nike and Adidas and fast fashion chain H&M for quite some time. But, as George explains, turning ocean plastics into clothing or shoes “is a completely different story.”

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The Extra Work of Turning Ocean Waste into a Good Material

FENC already has a complete supply chain in place for recycling PET bottles, from drawing yarn to spinning fibers and weaving fabrics. “But we had never treated ocean waste,” notes Huang Chuan-yi, a manager at FENC’s Long Fiber Division.

While PET bottles collected through domestic recycling schemes are comparably clean and uniform in color, PET bottles that have been dumped into the ocean turn blue after a while and become contaminated with a vast variety of materials that become entrapped or stick onto them.

Huang recalls that the first shipment of raw material that arrived in Taiwan had been packed into a bundle together with plastic tape and paper packaging. Since some bottles even still contained oil, company staff were all quite concerned. (Taiwan: Trouble in the Recycling Kingdom)

In the past, contaminated raw materials were usually processed into filling material that is categorized as second-grade raw material. But FENC treats the ocean waste with an additional process so that it can be used as top-grade material in footwear and even in apparel.

Presently, the only disadvantage is that the “cleanliness” of the source material does not yet reach the level of the typical recycled PET bottle. Therefore, the upcycled material can only be died in a limited range of colors.

In the production of one pair of shoes, 11 PET bottles can be recycled. It is expected that, with the mass production of such footwear, ocean waste could be reduced markedly. (Source: Parley for the Oceans)

Another problem is how to ship plastic waste recovered from the ocean back to Taiwan.

Before the Lunar New Year, Parley for the Ocean shipped the first batch of PET bottles recovered from the sea and beaches in the Maldives, more than 5,000 kilometers away, to Taiwan. Only when the shipment arrived was it discovered that it consisted of fewer bottles than expected.

Normally PET bottles collected on land are first pressed into bricks to save storage space and costs. A standard container packed with the condensed PET bricks can hold around 20 tons of raw material.

However, since the Maldives had never treated PET bottles from the sea, only eight tons could be packed.

This is where recycling expert Oriental Resources Development Limited, a FENC subsidiary based in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District, came in.

The company helped a dozen island states near the Maldives set up a recycling system that standardized the recovery of ocean PET bottles. As a result, transport costs can be reduced, and treatment after arrival in Taiwan becomes simpler.

After securing the stable supply of good raw material, FENC still had to solve the problem that the recycled ocean plastic was not strong enough for use in footwear. Therefore, the plastics from the PET bottles are alcoholized in a special process that results in higher supporting strength.

                       

The ocean waste to footwear project presented not only a technological challenge but was also a race against time. Developing a new shoe model normally takes at least 18 months from design to market. However, FENC was able to integrate the entire supply chain so that the novel sneaker could be mass produced in under a year.

“Back then, we were rushing things day and night, sending so many emails back and forth that our mailboxes ran out of space,” recalls George.

As a result, Adidas was able to present the prototype of a shoe made of ocean plastic as planned on June 8, World Oceans Day, in 2015, and they began mass production the following year.

The millions of pairs that have been sold since were all produced with key technology developed in Taiwan. At 11 recycled PET bottles per pair, this means tens of millions of PET bottles have been recovered and upcycled into shoes.

In the future, such technologies will become Taiwan’s competitive advantage as consumers and manufacturers favor more sustainable products.

Taiwan Textile Federation Secretary General Huang Wei-chi notes that there is a clear trend among large brands and retailers to opt for innovative green materials. This is where Taiwan should focus its efforts, letting green raw materials play a bigger role in our lives. (Read: Taiwan Must Market Itself as a Global Steward of Green)

Translated by Susanne Ganz
Edited by Sharon Tseng

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