German sportswear giant Adidas helped keep plastic out of the mouths of fish and off the world’s beaches in 2017 by selling 1 million shoes made from ocean plastic. [1]
Last year, Adidas teamed up with environmental initiative Parley for the Oceans to create its UltraBoost shoe, made from plastic found in the ocean, and introduced 3 new versions of the footwear.
At the time, Adidas said its goal was to create a million pairs of UltraBoost shoes.
Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted said:
“We last year sold 1 million shoes made out of ocean plastic.”
Each UltraBoost shoe reuses 11 plastic bottles.
For this year’s Earth Day weekend, Adidas once again partnered up with Parley, this time to “upcycle” reclaimed ocean plastics into limited-edition Major League Soccer (MLS) uniforms. All 23 MLS teams donated the uniforms that weekend for the campaign, dubbed “A World Without Plastic Pollution.” Each jersey is made from 13 recycled plastic bottles and will be available to purchase on the Adidas and MLS online stores. [2]
What’s more, this past July the global sportswear maker said that it will commit to using only recycled plastic by 2024. According to CNN:
“Adidas … also said it would stop using virgin plastic in its offices, retail outlets, warehouses and distribution centers, a move that would save an estimated 40 tons of plastic per year, starting in 2018.”
The company joins numerous other companies looking to make the world more ‘green’ by eliminating plastics, including:
- Supermarket chain Kroger, which announced August 23 that the supermarket chain will phase-out plastic bags from all of its stores by 2025.
- Starbucks, which pledged to eliminate plastic straws from all of its stores by 2020.
- Costa Rica, which promised to ban all single-use plastics by 2021.
- Among others