| Hi Don. |
| Did you get the copy of the article on recycling footwear that I emailed you? |
| Yeah it's here... |
| I've had a look at it. |
| So do you think it's a good topic for our presentation? |
| Well, before I started reading it, I thought recycling footwear... |
| well, although it's quite interesting, perhaps there isn't enough to say about it, |
| cos we put shoes in recycling bins, they go to charity shops and that's about it. |
| But there's much more to it than that. |
| I realise that now and I'm keen to research the topic more. |
| That's great. |
| One of the things I didn't realise until I read the article was just how many pairs of trainers get recycled! |
| Well, a lot of young people wear them all the time now. |
| They've become more popular than ordinary shoes. |
| I know. |
| I guess they are very hard-wearing, |
| but don't they look a bit casual for school uniform? |
| I don't think they're right for that. |
| Actually, I think some of them look quite smart on pupils... |
| Better than a scruffy old pair of shoes. |
| So do you keep shoes a long time? |
| Yes. |
| Though I do tend to wear my old pairs for doing dirty jobs like cleaning my bike. |
| I must admit, |
| I've recycled some perfectly good shoes, that haven't gone out of fashion and still fit, |
| just because they don't look great on me anymore. |
| That's awful, isn't it? |
| I think it's common because there's so much choice. |
| The article did say that recent sales of footwear have increased enormously. |
| That didn't surprise me. |
| No. |
| But then it said that the amount of recycled footwear has fallen: |
| it's 6% now compared to a previous level of 11%. |
| That doesn't seem to make sense. |
| That's because not everything goes through the recycling process. |
| Some footwear just isn't good enough to re-sell, for one reason or another, and gets rejected. |
| So let's find some examples in the article of footwear that was rejected for recycling. |
| Okay. |
| I think there are some in the interview with the recycling manager. |
| Yeah... here it is. |
| Let's start with the ladies' high-heeled shoes. |
| What did he say about those? |
| He said they were probably expensive. |
| The material was suede and they were beige in colour. |
| It looked like someone had only worn them once, but in a very wet field |
| so the heels were too stained with mud and grass to re-sell them. |
| Okay... |
| And the leather ankle boots. |
| What was wrong with them? |
| Apparently, the heels were worn |
| but that wasn't the problem. |
| One of the shoes was a much lighter shade than the other one. |
| It'd obviously been left in the sun. |
| I suppose even second-hand shoes should look the same! |
| Sure. |
| Then there were the red baby shoes. |
| Oh yes... |
| we're told to tie shoes together when we put them in a recycling bin, |
| but people often don't bother. |
| You'd think it would have been easy to find the other, but it wasn't. |
| That was a shame because they were obviously new. |
| The trainers were interesting. |
| He said they looked like they'd been worn by a marathon runner. |
| Yeah... weren't they split? |
| Not exactly. |
| One of the soles was so worn under the foot that you could put your finger through it. |
| Well, we could certainly use some of those examples in our presentation to explain why 90% of shoes that people take to recycling centres or bins get thrown into landfill. |
| What did you think about the project his team set up to avoid this by making new shoes out of the good parts of old shoes? |
| It sounded like a good idea. |
| They get so many shoes, they should be able to match parts. |
| I wasn't surprised that it failed, though. |
| I mean who wants to buy second-hand shoes really? |
| Think of all the germs you could catch! |
| Well, people didn't refuse them for that reason, did they? |
| It was because the pairs of shoes weren't identical. |
| They still managed to ship them overseas, though. |
| That's another area we need to discuss. |
| You know I used to consider this topic just from my own perspective, |
| by thinking about my own recycling behaviour without looking at the bigger picture. |
| So much happens once shoes leave the recycling area. |
| It's not as simple as you first think, |
| and we can show that by taking a very different approach to it. |
| Absolutely. |
| So let's discuss... |