Part 3 · audioscript
Hi Don – did you get the copy of the article on recycling footwear that I emailed you?
Yeah – it’s here … I’ve had a look at it.
So do you think it’s a good topic for our presentation?
Well, before I started reading it, I thought recycling footwear, well, although it’s quite interesting, perhaps there isn’t enough to say about it, cos we put shoes in recycling bins, they go to charity shops and that’s about it.
… but there’s much more to it than that.
I realise that now and I’m keen to research the topic more.
That’s great.
One of the things I didn’t realise until I read the article was just how many pairs of trainers get recycled!
Well, a lot of young people wear them all the time now. They’ve become more popular than ordinary shoes.
I know. I guess they are very hard-wearing, but don’t they look a bit casual for school uniform? I don’t think they’re right for that.
Actually, I think some of them look quite smart on pupils … better than a scruffy old pair of shoes.
So do you keep shoes a long time?
Yes. Though I do tend to wear my old pairs for doing dirty jobs like cleaning my bike.
I must admit, I’ve recycled some perfectly good shoes, that haven’t gone out of fashion and still fit, just because they don’t look great on me any more. That’s awful isn’t it?
I think it’s common because there’s so much choice. The article did say that recent sales of footwear have increased enormously.
That didn’t surprise me.
No. But then it said that the amount of recycled footwear has fallen: it’s 6 percent now compared to a previous level of 11 percent. That doesn’t seem to make sense.
That’s because not everything goes through the recycling process. Some footwear just isn’t good enough to re-sell, for one reason or another, and gets rejected.
So let’s find some examples in the article of footwear that was rejected for recycling.
OK. I think there are some in the interview with the recycling manager. Yeah – here it is.
Mmm. Let’s start with the ladies’ high-heeled shoes. What did he say about those?
He said they were probably expensive – the material was suede and they were beige in colour – it looked like someone had only worn them once, but in a very wet field so the heels were too stained with mud and grass to re-sell them.
OK … and the leather ankle boots. What was wrong with them?
Apparently, the heels were worn – but that wasn’t the problem. One of the shoes was a much lighter shade than the other one – it had obviously been left in the sun. I suppose even second-hand shoes should look the same!
Sure. Then there were the red baby shoes.
Oh yes – we’re told to tie shoes together when we put them in a recycling bin, but people often don’t bother.
You’d think it would have been easy to find the other, but it wasn’t. That was a shame because they were obviously new.
The trainers were interesting. He said they looked like they’d been worn by a marathon runner.
Yeah – weren’t they split?
Not exactly. One of the soles was so worn under the foot that you could put your finger through it.
Well, we could certainly use some of those examples in our presentation to explain why 90 percent of shoes that people take to recycling centres or bins get thrown into landfill.
Mmm. What did you think about the project his team set up to avoid this by making new shoes out of the good parts of old shoes?
It sounded like a good idea. They get so many shoes, they should be able to match parts. I wasn’t surprised that it failed, though. I mean who wants to buy second-hand shoes really? Think of all the germs you could catch!
Well, people didn’t refuse them for that reason, did they? It was because the pairs of shoes weren’t identical.
They still managed to ship them overseas, though.
That’s another area we need to discuss.
You know I used to consider this topic just from my own perspective, by thinking about my own recycling behaviour without looking at the bigger picture. So much happens once shoes leave the recycling area.
It’s not as simple as you first think, and we can show that by taking a very different approach to it.
Absolutely. So let’s discuss …