Report finds many undamaged shoes discarded

The new research investigates post-consumer footwear waste.

Described as a global platform for collaborative innovation to transform and build a regenerative industry, the Fashion For Good organisation has published the first major findings of its ‘Closing the Footwear Loop’ project. This report is said to dive deep into the material flow, composition analysis and condition of postconsumer footwear waste, capturing the on-ground findings from pilot schemes and translating them into actionable insights for the industry.

The body’s findings include that 50 per cent of post-consumer footwear waste is non-rewearable, 46 per cent of post-consumer footwear waste is rewearable and the remaining 4 per cent is contaminated, hindering rewearability and recyclability. Ninety per cent of rewearable footwear is exported, 24 per cent of shoes classified as ‘non-rewearable’ had no physical damage, and 37.7 per cent of non-renewable sole materials were unidentifiable by near-infrared scanning.

Publishing Data

This article was originally published on page 2 of the June 2026 issue of SATRA Bulletin.

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