Adidas is raising awareness to the threat of plastic pollution by teaming up with the nonprofit organization Parley for the Oceans and creating the UltraBOOST Uncaged Parley, a sneaker primarily made from plastics that have been recovered from the ocean.
The Primekint upper of the sneaker is made from water bottles, grocery bags and nylon fishing nets that were found during one of Parley’s cleanup expeditions and upcycled into yarn. The laces, heel cap base material, heel webbing, heel lining and the sock-liner cover are also been made of recycled materials.
According to adidas, each pair of UltraBoost Uncaged Parley shoes contains the equivalent of 11 plastic water bottles. The brand has also developed a line of soccer jerseys made of recycled ocean plastic.
Adidas will be releasing 7,000 pairs in the next few days.
“But we won’t stop there,” adidas executive board member Eric Liedtke said in a release. “We will make one million pairs of shoes using Parley Ocean Plastic in 2017 – and our ultimate ambition is to eliminate virgin plastic from our supply chain.”
Cyrill Gutsch, founder of Parley for the Oceans, says that we’re well past the point of simply talking about ocean pollution.
“At this point, it’s no longer just about raising awareness,” Gutsch said. “It’s about taking action and implementing strategies that can end the cycle of plastic pollution for good.”
If adidas produces one million pairs of the UltraBoost Uncaged Parley shoes by the end of next year, then approximately 11 million water bottles could potentially be removed from the oceans and that’s significant.
