The Green Ostrich

This shoe is made from recycled bottles! We see claims like this all the time on plastic clothes and shoes (yes, our clothes and shoes are made of plastic), but what does it mean? Does it really make our clothing better for the planet? Or is it just greenwashing? 

The Brooks Ghost 15 claims to be made from 57% recycled materials in the upper, diverting 6.58 plastic bottles from landfills.* Sounds great, right? Maybe partly, but not really. Yes – using recycled plastic has some advantages over virgin plastic, but it’s not the perfect solution that the industry wants us to believe. 

So what’s the problem? 

Most importantly, it’s still a new product. We just don’t need to be producing more new shoes and clothes. But I digress. Even when we take that out of the equation, recycled bottles are not a get out of jail free card for shoe and clothing companies. Why? I’m glad you asked.

First, note that Brooks is diverting plastic bottles from landfills not diverting sneakers from landfills. The vast majority of recycled material for clothing and shoes is made from plastic bottles. This is problematic for a few reasons. For one thing, those 6.58 plastic bottles that Brooks references are already part of a closed loop system. Plastic bottles can, in theory, be recycled into new plastic bottles 10 times. By turning them into shoes that cannot be recycled into new shoes (wait, they’re recycled but not recyclable? I’m confused… more to come), those bottles are now in a linear system. Another issue is that the fashion industry’s push to make clothing and shoes out of recycled plastics is sustaining the demand for single use plastic bottles. 

Second, clothing and shoes made from recycled plastic are still made from plastic. Shocking! They don’t biodegrade and they leach microplastics and other toxins that end up in our waterways and ultimately in our bloodstream, harming both the ecosystems around us and our own health. 

Third, the claim can be, at best, confusing and, at worst, deceptive. Brooks (I’m picking on Brooks, but they are merely one of many many players in this game) is highlighting a percentage of recycled materials in one part (the uppers) of certain shoes. That shoe is only one part of a larger product line and the upper is only one part of the shoe. Yes, we cannot expect perfection overnight, but without oversight, these claims start to look like the perfect solution allowing brands to stop there. This is greenwashing at work. 

Finally, as alluded to above, “made from recycled materials” is not the same as recyclable. To the extent that we are making new clothing and shoes at all, what we really need to be working towards is recyclable products. Right now, traditionally made clothing and shoes are extremely difficult to recycle. This is because of the diversity in fibers and materials, the dyes, the glues, and other factors. This means that those recycled plastic bottles are destined for the landfill by way of our running shoes. 

Plastics – recycled or virgin – won’t be eliminated from our clothing and shoes overnight, but we  need to look for brands that are using alternative materials and phasing out the plastics. We need to look at the brands that are innovating towards circular systems where a running shoe can be broken up and recycled into a new running shoe and a shirt can be recycled into a new shirt. We need to hold brands accountable and not blindly assume that a brand is doing all it can because it is using some recycled materials some of the time. 

*It’s worth noting that the Brooks Ghost also claims to be a carbon neutral shoe but this is largely due to purchasing carbon offsets not from the actual production of the shoe, which in itself is a bit of greenwashing.