A project to recycle old shoes for making new footwear – or even for generating energy – is being spearheaded by Loughborough University, UK.

Researchers at the university are looking at ways of recycling some of the 17 billion pairs of shoes that are made every year world-wide. Of these, most end up in landfill sites after just one or two years.

Loughborough is leading the research on shoe recycling as part of a European consortium of 54 organisations, including businesses, technology providers, research and development institutes, and other universities.

Solutions include reintroducing old shoes back onto the market by repairing and polishing them; recovering sole and upper materials to put into new shoes; re-using parts of the shoes to make other products; or utilising discarded shoes to generate energy or other useful by-products.

As part of the overall project, researchers want to develop radical new manufacturing processes, materials, products and services to increase the competitiveness of the European footwear sector and to make shoe recycling easier.