How to repair and recycle a sneaker

Through a new concept of sole it is possible to recycle giving new life to a shoe used, also a sneaker? Marc Van Tichelen – French, industrial designer who has worked as a designer for different footwear companies including Salomon and Kalenji – he thought and imagined an interesting way to breathe new life to a pair of shoes used, crossing the many opportunities that technologies today offer.

He developed his personal project imagining of founding a real company specializing in the recovery and re-use of the product the shoe and has called TSF-The Sun Factory. The aim is to save from oblivion the 82% of the used shoes that are thrown away. A goal that even more than others is in favor of the eco-sustainability: lengthen the life of a product is the best way to preserve the planet. Repair is then the solution. Only some models of the shoe, however, are usually repaired. The sneaker, for example, are almost always thrown in the dustbin.

This company, if there existed, it would propose to collect used shoes, repair the upper and then apply a new sole (from the great impact design) formed through the recycling of old Funds used and ruined that would cast so as to obtain the material to print a new sole in 3D. A process that doing so would prolong the life of the product and the original brand, while giving life and visibility even in the new brand that promotes the new sole. A project, certainly, by obvious constructive difficulties, (logistics, for example, or techniques – to recycle the material of the soles old food for 3D printing is not so immediately), which is however reflect on what might happen in the future and how to imagine new scenarios for the world of the soles.