The French are fans of shoes! According to industry estimates, more than 400 million pairs are purchased each year on the national territory. But whether you tirelessly accumulate shoes in your dressing room or regularly empty yourself to be able to offer yourself new ones, you unknowingly participate in a monster waste.

As recalled in an issue of the Capital show broadcast on M6 in March 2021, some 600 million pairs are thrown away each year, or 9 pairs per minute that will be 90% incinerated or buried in the ground. It's time for that to change!

Second life just a click away

Do you no longer like your derbies? Have your sneakers always been too small? Do your boots hurt your feet? Resell them!

The second-hand market is exploding in all areas and the footwear sector is no exception. Whether in garage sales or on websites specializing in the resale of fashion pieces, such as Vestiaire collective, Vinted or Vide dressing, you can always draw a few tens of euros of shoes in good condition.

Major ready-to-wear brands have also embarked on the second-hand fashion niche... with varying degrees of relevance. For example, the Jacadi-secondevie.com portal takes care of everything (managing the ad, sending the package, etc.) and allows you to resell your children's outfits and shoes in exchange for an e-gift card.

Downside: only the pieces of the brand can be resold.

On Secondemain.kiabi.com on the other hand, you can sell any type of clothing and accessories, but you will have to manage the ad yourself (payment in euros or voucher).

More practical, Eram, Bocage and Mellow Yellow take care of your sale, regardless of the brand of your shoes, via the French platform Claquettesmarket.com. The result: a 30% revalued voucher to be used in all three brands.

The reflex of giving

If resale is a good option for pairs of shoes as soon as they are bought and stored in the closet having been little, if at all, worn, what about those that have served well?

As long as they are usable, do not hesitate to give them so that they complete the dressing room of people who do not have the means to afford them.

You are spoilt for choice here. First reflex: use one of the 18,000 textile collection containers, household linen and shoes of the Le Relais network present throughout the territory. The business is sorted, then valued by being resold at low prices, especially in Africa, or recycled according to their condition.

Difficult recycling

Since the shoes are very damaged, they are unfortunately most often doomed to destruction. Indeed, our shoes can contain up to forty different materials, which makes them very difficult to recycle.

OUR "SHOES" FOLDER

Under the rise of increasingly restrictive legislation, various brands offer to recover your old pairs in store to enhance them, in return for a symbolic voucher.

It's always taken for your purchasing power and the planet!

The shoes of the future

The challenge of recycling shoes depends above all on the development of new, more virtuous design methods.

Some brands have embarked on upcycling, such as the very young company Sans Les Plumes, founded in 2020, which offers a collection of sneakers made from French public transport seat fabrics.

Others rely instead on innovative materials such as pinatex, an alternative leather made from the unused remains of pineapple.

Finally, some brands design shoes to facilitate recycling. This is the case of TBS's Resource ethical sneaker, composed mainly of recycled rubber and presented as infinitely recyclable, or Salomon's Index models, designed to be easily disassembled and therefore recycled.

Same principle at Cacatoès with its vegan sandals in recycled PVC.

  • Consumption
  • Gift
  • Ecology
  • Innovation
  • Purchasing power
  • Recycling
  • Economy
  • Video