Can Plastic Shoes Be Recycled?

Plastic jelly shoes—an undeniable mark of coolness from the 1990s—are back in vogue. But with plastic pollution and fossil fuel extraction threatening the environment and climate, people in 2023 are asking more of brands behind the shiny, colorful footwear.

Melissa, the original jelly shoemaker founded in Brazil in 1979, produces its iconic sandals using 100% clean and renewable energy. It also has a robust system to conserve and reuse water, and introduced new packaging in 2021 that’s fully recyclable using starch-based glue and water-based paint.

The brand even claims that its shoes—made of a proprietary polyvinyl chloride material dubbed Melflex—are 100% recyclable. But experts told Adweek that’s not likely to happen in practice in the United States. PVC isn’t recyclable through municipal recycling programs, and with only four brick-and-mortar locations in the U.S., the likelihood that they’ll find their way to the in-store take-back bin is very low.

The gap between what’s possible and what’s likely for worn-out jellies exposes a broader challenge facing the fashion industry as it struggles toward circularity. As brands do the complex work of reducing climate impact, communicating that work with sustainability-minded consumers is important.

But finding the right balance between what’s technically possible, what’s currently available given systemic constraints—and what’s compelling and exciting for consumers—is a delicate dance for marketers.

What does ‘recyclable’ mean in advertising?

To ensure that people aren’t being misled—or simply misunderstanding recyclability claims—the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has laid out a set of guidelines for brands making these claims, explained advertising lawyer Jeffrey Greenbaum, managing partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC and global chairman of the Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance.

“If there’s important information that consumers need to know in order to prevent a claim from being misleading, that information has to accompany the claim, it has to be right there, and it has to be—as the FTC would say—’difficult to miss.’”

The FTC’s Green Guides state that “marketers should qualify recyclable claims when recycling facilities are not available to at least 60% of the consumers or communities where a product is sold.” Essentially, anything that’s labeled simply as “recyclable,” with no further explanation, should be able to go into the blue bin for most people, because that’s generally how consumers understand recyclability.

But that won’t work for jellies—or any shoes, for that matter.

“If those shoes came into any [material recycling facility] in the country, they would get thrown away,” said Lynn Hoffman, co-president of nonprofit, mission-based recycler Eureka Recycling. “They’re made of PVC, which is one of the more toxic types of plastic.”

Because of the harsh chemicals used to make PVC, some brands, like Stella McCartney, have cut the material completely from their product lines. Melissa told Adweek that PVC’s negative reputation comes from harmful additives used in the material in the 1990s, but that aren’t present in Melflex.

Designing for circularity

But just because the shoes aren’t compatible with municipal recycling processes doesn’t mean that recycling jellies is an impossible task. Melissa has been collecting used shoes through its in-store take-back program in Brazil since 2019. Last year, it produced a limited run of 5,000 Flox sandals made of 100% recycled materials.

So far, the brand has only collected about 9,000 pairs from consumers through the take-back program, which includes a network of over 400 drop-off locations. But without a higher return rate, it’s not possible to create an ongoing line of fully recycled shoes.

In some cases, the shoes are collected and mechanically processed with partners that are so far from the Melissa factory that it doesn’t make sense, from a carbon emissions standpoint, to transport the recycled raw material back to the production facility. In that case, the material is used locally to make things like chairs, rugs or bag handles, according to Carlos Andre Carvalho, sustainability manager for Melissa’s parent company, Grendene.

To recycle the shoes in the U.S., Melissa is currently working to finalize a U.S.-based recycling partner, which Carvalho said they expect to announce in the coming weeks. Once that’s set up, he said, Melissa will roll out a nationwide take-back program in the U.S. similar to what’s available in Brazil.

Compared to other shoes, Melissa sandals do have some major advantages when it comes to recyclability. Because they’re all one material, a mechanical recycling process, where the shoes are shredded, melted down and then turned into a new feedstock, is much more straightforward than your average sneaker. While the majority of its shoes are made with petrochemicals, about 25% of the plastic now comes from bio-based sources like vegetable oils.

“[The FTC wants] to know that if you’re promoting an environmental benefit, that benefit is actually going to be achieved by consumers,” Greenbaum said. “At this moment, it’s perfectly fine to have a different type of recycling program available, as long as you convey it to consumers.”