A French recycling firm is looking to boost its fortunes and make a big difference in the polluting textile industry by putting sports shoes destined for the dustbin back on the people's feet.
Long gone are the times when wearing a pair of sports shoes meant you couldn't get into some posh places for neither love nor money.
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These days, so many young, middle-aged and old people wear trainers they've become ubiquitous in almost all walks of life.
So when your favourite footwear reaches what seems to be the end of its natural life, for one firm in east of Paris that's the starting point of a whole new business.
Hundreds of used sneakers arrive every week at a workshop in the French capital where staff have to ask a simple question: Can a shoe be saved?
Enter SneakCœurZ.
The non-profit organisation sorts shoes to determine which ones can literally be resold, redistributed or rejected.
Mohamed Boukhatem, the firm's director general and co-founder, says last year they resold 2,000 out of 30,000 pairs of used trainers collected, and now they want to step up.
“Over the next three years, the goal is to triple or even quadruple these volumes and move to an industrial scale,” says Boukhatem. “Today, there is no project of this scale in the sneaker sector. We are the only ones able to industrialise both the processes and the collection of sneakers for reuse.”
In addition, the non-profit says it redistributed more than 7,000 pairs to people in need and helped create 19 jobs.
The group's work highlights a growing waste problem in Paris, widely recognised as one of the world's fashion and luxury centres.
Refashion, France's government-approved eco-organization for clothing, household linen and footwear, says 259 million pairs of shoes were sold in the country in 2024.
It claims, however, that only about a third of used textiles and footwear are separately collected, with much of the rest left in cupboards or thrown away with household waste.
At its workshop in Champs-sur-Marne, workers for SneakCœurZ inspect the used shoes and check which can be salvaged.
Pairs that make the cut are cleaned from the sole upward, disinfected inside and, in some cases, whitened under UV light before being put back into circulation.
“The structural elements of the shoe are what determine whether we can refurbish it or not,” according to workshop manager Paul Defawes Abadie.
“A damaged Velcro strap isn’t a deal breaker. A lace isn’t a deal breaker. Dirt is never a deal breaker,” he says. “What really matters is the wear of the structural materials, especially the outsole.”
Fancy footwork
France has tried to respond to the issue of fast-fashion waste with law as well as rhetoric.
Its 2020 anti-waste law requires unsold nonfood goods to be reused, donated or recycled instead of destroyed.
Authorities introduced a state-backed repair bonus for clothing and shoes in November 2023. Separately, lawmakers are still working on a bill aimed at reducing the textile industry’s environmental impact.
The stakes couldn't be much higher with the textile and clothing industry among the world’s most polluting.
According to the United Nations, the fashion and textiles sector accounts for up to 8 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The European Parliament has said textiles were the third-largest source of water degradation and land use in the European Union in 2020.
